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Editorial: The Real Enemy
Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
20/07/2006
At the moment, many writers in the alternative media are feeling extremely
angry, depressed and frustrated at what is happening in Palestine and Lebanon.
Despite hundreds of editorials and essays eloquently decrying Israeli aggression
and provocation and spelling out the very obvious reason for the long-standing
violence in the Middle East, Israel continues its murderous rampage,
killing almost 70 Lebanese civilians yesterday. Yesterday's attacks involved
Israeli bombing of entire Lebanese villages, such as Srifa in the south west
of Lebanon where Israeli F-16 jets, supplied free of charge by the US government,
destroyed 15 houses, killed at least 20, and wounded at least 30, men women,
young and old alike. The truly horrifying thing however is that the inhabitants
of the villages were fleeing on the orders of the Israeli government itself,
yet as the villagers attempted to leave in their cars and vans, they were targeted
by Israeli jets and blown to pieces...
At the beginning of the current crisis
in Palestine, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated
clearly that the lives of Israeli civilians were more important
than the lives of Palestinian civilians and that the bombing of the Gaza strip
and Lebanon is designed to wipe out the threat to Israeli citizens from Hamas
and Hezbollah. In the past 5 years, 5 Israeli civilians have been
killed in one town as a result of Hamas rockets, and none have been killed
as a result of Hizbollah attacks. Yet in the past week and as a result of
Israeli attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah, 14 Israeli citizens of Haifa have
been killed. Clearly, and despite his words, Olmert cares little more for the
lives of Israeli Jews than he does for the lives of Arabs.
Is It Really About Defence?
As an explanation for the murder of 300 Lebanese civilians over the past
7 days and the murder of over 3,000 Palestinian civilians and 800 Israeli civilians
over the past five years, Bush and Olmert repeatedly state that "Israel
has a right to defend itself". When the facts are analysed, this claim
is nonsensical and an outright lie. The Israeli military has been occupying
Palestinian, Lebanese (the Chebaa Farms area) and Syrian (Golan heights) for
almost 40 years. In the Palestinian land that it occupies, the Israeli government
had reduced the Palestinian population therein to little more than slaves.
Israel holds these lands in defiance of international law. This is the
major source of
Palestinian and Hezbollah resentment towards and attacks on Israel. The
continuation of an enforced occupation of the sovereign territory of another
people and nation simply cannot be described as "defence".
If a person comes and throws you out of your home and occupies it by force
of arms, he may claim that he is "defending" it, but it is a defence
of something acquired through illegal means and is therefore an unlawful
and aggressive act. It is not defence.
The history of Israeli tactics in the occupied Palestinian territories over
the past 50 years make it very clear that the ultimate goal of the Israeli
power brokers has always been the removal, in one way or another,
of all Palestinians from their land.
Consider the below image
of illegal Israeli settlements in the West.
Now remember, other than the miniscule
Gaza strip, this is all of the land available for a Palestinian
state! The Israeli government began building the illegal settlements in 1967,
they same year that it annexed Lebanese and Syrian land. Today, Israeli settlers
live in plush comfortable houses with all amenities on 40% of Palestinian land
in the West Bank, while Palestinians regularly have their meager houses destroyed
by Israeli bulldozers. All crossings out of Gaza and the West Bank are strictly
controlled by Israeli troops, with most Palestinians being denied the right
to leave. Poverty in Gaza and the West Bank is rife with 65% of the population
living below the poverty line i.e. on less than $2 per day.
What is very clear
to Palestinians, and has been for a very long time, is that the Israeli government never intended
to allow the Palestinians to have a state of their own. Palestinians are painfully
aware of the fact that, since 1967, the Israeli government has been preparing
what was left of Palestinian land for a final annexation into Israel, with
the only impediment to the fulfillment of this plan being the Palestinians
living there. With the recent staged crisis, Israel hopes to find the opportunity
to deal with this last 'obstacle' to Greater Israel, once and for all. Clearly
then, it is the Palestinians, and now the Lebanese, who are, and have always
been engaged in defence against a long-term and ongoing Israeli plot to dispossess
them of their land and homes forever.
How do you feel about this?
When you look at the bodies of Lebanese babies, their little bodies lying
mangled, scattered around the ground beside the burnt-out van they were travelling
in only minutes before, what do you feel? Is this a just end
to this child's life?! Did he deserve it?!
When you realise
that these children were ordered to leave their homes by the Israeli military
in a deliberate ploy to "flush them out" in order to blow them to
pieces with their bombs, what do you feel?
When you see the once beautiful brown curls of a 5 year old Lebanese girl,
now matted with her own blood, her clothes torn, her head hanging lifeless,
what do you feel?
When you look at the image below of another Lebanese "terrorist" girl
'taken out' by Israeli war planes, do you think of your own children? Do you
imagine how you would feel if this were your child?
When you see the burning bodies of two lebanese civilians, the victims of
Israeli and American 'defence', is it pride you feel?
Imagine for a moment that you are the President of America, or a member of
his administration, or the Israeli Prime Minister, or a member of his administration.
Having seen these pictures, would you, as "Commander in Chief", continue
to order more air strikes on civilian targets? If you retained even an ounce
of your own humanity - your ability to empathise with the suffering of another
- you most definitely would not. You could not. Bush and Olmert
see these pictures and they remained unmoved, supremely detached from any
emotion at the sight of a dead child, and they give the order to continue the
bombing.
Apparently, they want to see more dead children.
Am I being inflammatory when I say this? Am I exaggerating? Can it really
be possible that our leaders are so inhuman, so different from you and I?
No
one wants to consider such a concept, but what else are we to conclude when
the bombing continues? When 270 of 300 Lebanese killed in the past week were
innocent civilians, are you going to tell me that Israeli (and therefore American)
war technology is so crude that it repeatedly hits the wrong target? In which
case, why do they keep using such devices? Are you trying to tell me that missiles
that hit the fleeing civilians were not deliberate? How far
can your credibility be stretched?
The Real Enemy Of Mankind
The 'crisis' in Palestine and Lebanon comes at a bad time for the alternative
media. Up until a few weeks ago, we could still entertain the idea that
we were making a difference. The dogged blogging and posting of articles and
editorials on web sites seemed to be having an effect. We felt we had a voice
and that it was being listened to by an ever increasing number of people. We
thought the pressure we were bringing to bear would surely stay the hand of
the war mongers, that they would 'see the light', that we could 'bring them
to their senses'. But we were wrong it seems.
If there is one glaring problem with the alternative media today it is that
they do not know the true nature of the enemy. In fact, no one seems to realise
that we are fighting an enemy at all. Most still believe that we are dealing
with a few misguided political leaders who just seem to have a really hard
time realising that their actions are causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of innocent people. If they could only be made aware of this, the world would
turn the corner towards peace and prosperity for all, right?
Unfortunately, there is a serious problem with this assumption.
If we, the information-deprived masses, are able to get a glimpse of the carnage
that our political leaders are causing, is it not a certainty that these same
political leaders are significantly
more aware of the results of their actions? After all, they are in possession
of detailed intelligence reports on demographics, details of targets selected
and the nature and destructive power of the weapons they employ against those
targets. When we hear of an Israeli or American bomb scoring a direct
hit on a residential house that kills dozens of innocent men women and children,
our lack of knowledge of military affairs and planning allows us to believe
that maybe it was a mistake, that they didn't really mean to kill
civilians. Indeed, we need to believe this, because to believe
otherwise is to face ourselves into a very frightening scenario indeed - that
our political leaders, the men and women who sit in almost absolute power over
us, are fully conscious of their actions and therefore lack the one characteristic
that defines a person as truly human: empathy for the suffering of another
human being.
So we force ourselves to believe that the men and women with the power to
kill millions would never take delight in exercising that power. We think that
because we recoil in horror and grief at the sight of the lifeless
body of a small child lying beside the burnt out shell of the car she was travelling
in before it was hit by an Israeli or American missile, that the men who fired
the missile, or those who ordered them to fire it, are also deeply moved by
such a tragic scene. Yet we run into a problem the very moment that a second
missile, then a third and then a fourth, extinguishes more innocent lives.
How many more bodies of dead children, how many more weeks of Israeli military
bombing campaigns on civilian targets are needed before we come to the conclusion
that the members of the Israeli, American and British governments who, in full
knowledge of their actions continue to sanction or order such attacks, simply
do not, cannot, feel the same way about the massacring of innocent children
as you and I?
Understandably, this is a hard one for many people to accept. To accept it
heralds the end of our cozy world-view where basically good and decent leaders,
people just like you and I, are at least striving to
do what is best for the world and its people. In its place, we find ourselves
in a world where the global power brokers, the people who control every aspect
of our material lives, appear not to care about human life at all, save
their own.
How long might an impala on the serengeti expect to survive if, despite all
evidence to contrary, it continues to believe in the innate benevolence of
a lion towards its species?
This is an appropriate analogy. Scientific studies have shown that when normal
human beings are presented with a disturbing image of human suffering, an area
of the brain associated with emotion and empathy "lights up". Similar
studies carried out on known psychopaths show that they appear to lack the
normal range of human emotion. When a psychopath is shown a picture of a car,
followed by a picture of a dead child and a grieving mother, there is no difference
in brain response. There is no feeling it seems.
Psychopathy
Dr Hervey Cleckly spent years studying psychopaths up close and personal.
His book, The Mask of Sanity, shows that, outwardly, the
average intelligent psychopath bears no resemblance, neither in appearance
nor actions, to Hannibal Lecter or Ted Bundy. Neither is he in jail. On the
contrary, the average psychopath appears to be conscious of the fact that he
lacks the basic human ability to feel deep emotion and empathy
for another. Early on in his life, the psychopath learns that displays of complete
indifference to the suffering of others are reacted to with concern and sometimes
anger by his family and peers. So he learns to conceal it. At the same time,
he recognises and gravitates towards others who share his deficiency.
It is not hard to imagine that psychopaths do very well in business and politics
where the promotion of self-interest and the accrual of personal and group
power is the name of the game. Where you or I, in possession of a conscience,
would surely balk at, for example deliberately getting a work colleague
fired for no reason other than facilitate our own ascent of the corporate ladder,
no such impediment to success exists for the psychopath who simply cannot put
himself in the place of another human being and therefore feel empathy. While
it has been estimated that approximately 6% of the global population falls
into the category of psychopath (about 360 million people), their extreme
self-interest and the fact that such "ambition" is a key ingredient
of success in the world of politics and business, we assume much more than
6% of top level corporate, government and military positions are held by people
who possess no ability to empathise with the needs or suffering of another
human being.
A perusal of the last few thousand years of the history of our world quickly
reveals to us that, more than anything else, war has defined our 'evolution'
(if it can be called that). Equally obvious is the fact that, in war,
soldiers and civilians die while the men and women responsible for waging
war (on both sides) generally neither fight in the war nor are punished
for their part in it encouraging it.
Does that tell you anything?
Throughout
history, small groups of people have risen to power over the masses, and by
the promotion of religious, ethnic or political divisions, they have set large
groups of ordinary human beings against each other in order to further their
personal goals. More often that not, ideologies such as 'freedom' are used
to rally the masses to fight.
But history testifies that the only real net result of war is the consolidation
of power into the hands of an 'elite' few. The Second World War led to the
rise of Stalin and the murder of 50 million Russians. It led to the creation
of the state of Israel and the ongoing persecution of Middle Eastern Arabs.
It also facilitated the USA's rise to a position of global preeminence, a
situation which has caused more death and suffering over the past 60 years
than at any other time in our recent history.
Now more than ever, there is an opportunity for each
of us to recognise who the true enemy is. Why should we or our sons and daughers
continue to fight and kill each other on the command of a small group of people
whose only contribution has been to enrich themselves at our expense, at the
expense of our very lives? Are we stupid? Or are we just misinformed? The reality
of our world has always been a very clear case of Us and Them, yet we have
failed to see it. We fail to see the predatory, unfeeling nature of these
people because we ourselves lack such a nature. We project on to them
our own human values of empathy and conscience when, time and again, they have
proven that they possess no such qualities. We have allowed
them to divide us, and set us at each others throats in the name of
freedom, a value that we hold
dear, not they (save for their usefulness in manipulating us).
Now more than ever, the very real yet hidden
phenomenon of psychopathy needs desperately to be uncovered. We need to avail
ourselves of the evidence that suggests that many of our political leaders
are clinical, yet very smart and careful psychopaths. There is no other plausible
explanation for their smug brutality, their deadly lies, their utter indifference
to the pitiful sight of the lifeless body of small child for whose death they
are responsible.
Lest anyone begin the process of rationalising what I have
said, realise that to do so is evidence that your own humanity is being robbed
from you by the propagation of our 'leaders' psychopathic values and ideologies.
"War is peace", "Black is White" "Muslims are Terrorists" "Our
government is protecting us". Before you fall for such paramoralisms,
know this; psychopaths feel no empathy for any other human being.
Race or creed does not figure into the equation. There is significant evidence
that the psychopaths in power in the US and Israel knowingly murdered 3,000
American citizens on September 11th 2001, few were Muslim. At present the Israeli
government is placing the lives of Israeli Jews in clear danger precisely because
they simply cannot care about the life of any other human being, Christian,
Muslim, Jew they are concerned for none but themselves.
'Armgaeddon' Approaches
As a conclusion, I would like here to present a theory for your consideration,
and while you may immediately reject it as implausible, I suggest
you watch events in the Middle East and notice the direction they take. My
suggestion is that the ultimate goal of the plan that is being currently implemented
in Lebanon and Palestine is the destruction of a majority of the population
of the modern-day Middle East.
Far from
attempting to rid the world of a previously more or less non-existent anti-Semitism,
the policies pursued by successive Israeli governments have gone a long way
to increasing ill-feeling towards Jews and Israel. By repeatedly condemning
anyone who speaks out against the increasingly brutal actions of the Israeli
government as anti-Semitic, Israeli leaders and lobbyists are coming close
to making the word anti-Semitism respectable.
When that happens, the demise of Israel, the Jews and the Arabs of the Middle
East will be all but assured. That day is closer than any of us realise.
We have but one hope to prevent what appears to be an approaching major
war in the Middle East that will not be limited to that region and which will
result in the deaths of millions of innocents: we must understand the truth
about the men and women that call themselves our 'leaders', yet who offer nothing
but war, suffering and death. We must realise the that they are not like you
and I, they do not feel as you and I feel, they do not love and you and I love.
They are psychopaths, and under their stewardship death and destruction is
100% assured.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: From Israel to Lebanon
http://fromisraeltolebanon.info/
For more photos of the destruction and killing in Labanon because of the ruthless and premeditated attacks of Israel, go here.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Is Israel Using Arab Villages as Human Shields?
By JONATHAN COOK
July 19, 2006
Nazareth hit the international headlines for the first time in this vicious war being waged by Israel mostly on Lebanese civilians. Reporter Matthew Price, corseted in a blue flak jacket in Haifa, told BBC viewers that for the first time Hizbullah had targeted Nazareth late on Sunday. "Nazareth is a mostly Christian town", he added, managing to cram into a single sentence of a few words two factual mistakes and a disturbing hint of incitement.
Whatever the precision of its rockets (and Nazareth's residents are certainly worried enough about that), Hizbullah struck not at Nazareth but at a site some distance from Nazareth -- a site of strategic significance to Israel, though I cannot say more than that as we are now officially under martial law in the country's north.
Matthew Price was also wrong about Nazareth being a "mostly Christian town". During the 1948 war in which Israel's army ethnically cleansed much of the surrounding area of Palestinians, Muslim villagers fled to Nazareth in search of sanctuary. Today, two-thirds of the city's 75,000 inhabitants are Muslim -- or at least they are by the religious classification system imposed on all citizens by the Israeli authorities.
Which brings us to the nasty element of incitement from our BBC reporter.
Several Israeli armaments factories and storage depots have been built close by Arab communities in the north of Israel, possibly in the hope that by locating them there Arab regimes will be deterred from attacking Israel's enormous armory. In other words, the inhabitants of several of Israel's Arab towns and villages have been turned into collective human shields -- protection for Israel's war machine.
Before the strike close to Nazareth late on Sunday night, several Arab villages in the north had been hit by Hizbullah rockets trying to reach these factories. No one at the BBC saw the need to mention these attacks nor the fact that "mostly Muslim" villages had been hit. So why did the strike against Nazareth -- and its mistaken Christian status -- became part of the story for the BBC?
Because Israel wants to portray Hizbullah, and its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, as a crazed Islamic militia, as fanatical Muslims who hate Jews and Christians with equal vehemence. This is all part of Israel's claim that it is fighting George Bush's "war on terror". Predictably, the BBC obliged by regurgitating this piece of racist nonsense.
If anybody still doubts that Israel is shaping the news agenda of broadcasters like the BBC, here was as good as the proof.
* * *
According to the jingoistic Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office and the army are delirious at their success in dictating the headlines and tone of foreign news broadcasts.
Ehud Olmert's media adviser, Assif Shariv, told the Post that the international media were interviewing Israeli spokespeople four times as much as spokespeople for the Palestinians and Lebanese. Another government adviser, Gideon Meir, boasted: "We have never had it so good. The hasbara [propaganda] effort is a well-oiled machine."
Which may explain why we know so little about what is happening in Lebanon and Gaza -- and why we know so little about what is happening inside Israel too.
To remind you, I, like other residents of northern Israel, am under martial law. As are the foreign journalists -- and in addition they are required to submit their copy to the military censor. So all I can tell you, without breaking the law, is that you are not hearing the entire picture of what has been happening here in the Galilee.
Certainly, a piece of news that I doubt you will hear from the foreign media, although bravely the liberal Hebrew media has been drawing attention to the matter, is that the "only democracy in the Middle East" has all but silenced al-Jazeera from reporting inside Israel.
The reason is clear: until recently al-Jazeera had been running rings around the local and foreign press.
Al-Jazeera is the Arab world's most serious and popular news gatherer, and essential viewing for anyone who wants to get a realistic idea of the news from both sides of the border. When I heard the missile strike close by Nazareth on Sunday night, al-Jazeera told me what had happened a full half hour before the Israeli media, and a day before my colleague Matthew Price.
How do they do it? Because most of their staff in Israel are Israeli citizens, as well as being Palestinian Arabs. Their journalists belong to the forgotten fifth of the Israeli population whose citizenship is Israeli but whose nationality is Palestinian.
So not only do al-Jazeera's reporters know the northern patch of Israel like home ground (because it is home ground) but they are also not cravenly waiting for the Israeli Prime Minister's Office and army's spokesman to tell them what is going on.
Watching al-Jazeera has been a revelation: it has dedicated a substantial portion of its coverage to events inside Israel as well as in Lebanon, in stark contrast to Israeli broadcasters who rarely use any of the footage from Lebanon.
Similarly, al-Jazeera faithfully translated Ehud Olmert's speech word for word into Arabic, and then included a lengthy analysis from a local correspondent for its viewers. Israeli broadcasters, on the other hand, repeatedly mistranslated the televised words of Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah into Hebrew and English, removing context and his calls for negotiation.
Similar misrepresentations of Nasrallah's position in the foreign media presumably reflected their over-reliance on the Israeli broadcasters.
But al-Jazeera's coverage inside Israel -- the Arab world's best chance of being exposed to the Israeli point of view -- is being effectively shut down. In the past two days, its editor has been arrested on two occasions and another senior journalists taken in for questioning. According to its reporters, they cannot move from their office without being followed by the Israeli security services.
Why are they receiving this treatment? Because, according to Israel's only serious newspaper, Haaretz, the country's Hebrew media have been inciting against them. In particular Reshet Bet radio station, one of several wings of the Israeli media loyal to the government, has been telling lies that al-Jazeera is revealing classified information, namely the location of rocket strikes.
Is the claim true? According to Haaretz again: "Other TV networks, including Israeli news services, made similar reports without suffering from police intervention."
Freedom of the press rarely means much when governments go to war. The local media usually consider it their patriotic duty not only to strip of vital context the information they offer their viewers but they often falsify the record too. Much of Israel's media are clearly doing both jobs with some accomplishment.
But the fact that some in the Israeli media see it as part of their job to silence journalists not as craven as themselves is the real eye-opener. Maybe they realise al-Jazeera just makes them look like propagandists.
* * *
Nabila Espanioly, the director of a charitable organization in Nazareth promoting women and children's interests, makes a point worth remembering as the foreign and Israeli media huddle in the shelters of Haifa and Nahariya interviewing terrified "Israelis".
In fact, they are talking not to Israelis but to Israeli Jews. The fifth of the Israeli population who are not Jewish but Arab are rarely to be found hiding in public shelters because the authorities neglected to build any in their towns and villages.
In other words, although the Israeli army has sited several important weapons factories and military intelligence posts close to Arab communities in the north, the Israeli government has not offered the Arab residents any protection should there be fall-out -- quite literally in the case of the Katyusha rockets -- as a result.
This is another tiny facet of the discrimination endured for decades by the country's Arab population that so rarely surfaces in media coverage of Israel.
Similarly oblivious to the ironies, the Israeli and foreign media have been running heart-warming stories about how "Israelis" are opening their homes and hearths to their compatriots fleeing the north. Again for "Israelis" substitute "Israeli Jews".
No one I know here in Nazareth believes they would find much of a welcome in Tel Aviv or Beersheva should they go looking for one. Which leaves them with nowhere to run should they need to.
The only Arab communities out of the line of Hizbullah fire are those in the southern Negev belonging to the Bedouin. But that is not much comfort. Most of the Negev's 150,000 Bedouin have been forced to live in squalid tents and metal shacks by an Israeli government that bulldozes anything more permanent. The authorities also deprive many of the Bedouin communities of water and all public services. So sweating it out with the Katyushas may be the better option.
* * *
A final footnote -- one to ponder in the quieter moments after the worst of the suffering is over. Those Israeli Jews fleeing for their lives as they head south to the quiet -- so far at least -- of Tel Aviv and beyond offer a small echo of events nearly six decades ago when 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homes by the Israeli army.
Israeli Jews have always taken the view -- and happily tell any outsiders as much -- that the "Arabs" lost the right to their homes in the war of 1948 because they "fled" (in fact many were forcibly expelled, but let that drop for the moment).
The Israeli government has adopted much the same view, even refusing to allow the 250,000 of its own Arab citizens who are classified as internal refugees -- their ancestors fled the fighting in 1948 but have citizenship because they stayed inside what is today Israel -- to return to their original homes and land.
So how exactly should we regard those Israeli Jews now fleeing from Nahariya and Haifa? Should they lose their homes, their land and their bank accounts just as the Palestinians did in 1948?
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His book, "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State", is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
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Editorial: Watching American TV in Beirut
By Habib Battah
Thursday 20 July 2006, 12:24 Makka Time, 9:24 GMT
Aljazeera
War in Lebanon has once again become breaking news on television screens across the world, but a growing body of distorted reporting is being disseminated just as rapidly as the country is being destroyed.
In recent days, many American news programmes have demonstrated an exceptionally weak knowledge of Lebanese politics, skewed further by a lack of access to areas that have been attacked in the country and their victims.
Take Monday's coverage of the conflict on NBC's popular Today Show with anchorwoman Nathalie Morales, who in introducing a report on Hezbollah, rhetorically asks: "So just who is Israel at war with in this latest chapter of an ancient conflict?"
Not only does the reporter assume that Israel's war targets only Hezbollah (and not the Lebanese civilians, government, private businesses and the military, which have all been attacked) but even contradicts earlier reports on her own network indicating Hezbollah's founding to be in the early 1980s; hardly considered "ancient" times.
Equally misleading were reports on the Today Show defining Hezbollah solely as the mastermind of the 1982 attacks on US marines and possessor of long-range missiles.
Absent in the reporting was any reference to Hezbollah's role in defeating the 22-year Israeli occupation of the country and its support among up to a million Lebanese, with many benefiting from an intricate network of social services and political representation.
Of course, failing to report such details contributes to the view that Hezbollah acts as merely a renegade organisation rather than a movement that encompasses roughly a quarter of the country's population.
On the other hand, when it comes to reporting the situation in Israel, anchors on sister network MSNBC seem to boast an intimate knowledge of the population, even a bit of psychoanalytical skill.
During his show Hardball with Chris Mathews, the host describes the Israeli town of Haifa as being similar to a city in California, "very modern, very debonair".
Anchorwoman Rita Cosby, who freely dubs Hezbollah as "rag-tag" terrorists, would later describe an attack on "Holy Nazareth" as an assault on "the home town of Jesus", and erroneously as his birthplace - of course no reference to the multitude of biblical cities in Lebanon.
On Hardball, Mathews asks a reporter on the scene how Israelis are coping with "vacation plans" considering the war situation. Mathews concludes that a resilient character among the Israeli people, will "keep that country around for a very long time".
Later in the show there is analysis with field reporters and political pundits, many blatantly supportive of Israel's fight against "terror acts" and the "worldwide Islamic threat" - still no mention of the widespread devastation and human loss in Lebanon.
Mathew's questions include: "How do you get Hezbollah to stop? Will Israel get the job done? How broad a goal is Israel setting?" And finally: "What's a bigger threat to the United States? Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah?"
Mathews makes reference to the plight of the Lebanese only once during his show, when a reporter raises the possibility of a "bloody mess" for Israel.
Hours later, early on Tuesday, the casualty count in Lebanon stands at around 200 as cities and towns across the country are systematically pulverised, leaving hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians trapped and unable to escape the fighting.
A massive refugee crisis looms large while the country lies in complete disarray with its arterial roadways and bridges completely destroyed. Meanwhile, around a dozen are dead in Israel, with the last large attack occurring at a train depot on Sunday.
On Tuesday, 11 Lebanese soldiers are killed and a handful of rockets are launched at northern Israel with no casualties reported.
MSNBC decides to begin its newscast from Israel with a graphic that reads "breaking news: more than 250 killed in 7 days of fighting in Israel and Lebanon". There is no indication of which side is doing the lion's share of the killing, perpetuating a false sense of balance on the battlefield.
Over a live video feed, MSNBC anchorwoman Chris Jansen asks a reporter in North Israel about how average citizens there are coping with the short time lag between rocket attacks and air-raid sirens. The reporter describes a "quite frightening" situation for locals.
Jansen then speaks to a reporter in Lebanon over the phone, with a focus on the latest developments in the evacuation of foreign nationals. We are never told that average Lebanese citizens across the border have absolutely no warning of attacks and little access to well-fortified bomb shelters.
Before a commercial break there is footage of destruction across Lebanon, with swaths of the capital reduced to rubble. However, the graphics indicate that these are images of "Mideast Crisis" and not the result of round-the-clock Israeli air strikes.
Unlike the static clip of masked gunmen stomping on Israeli flags - images repeatedly attributed to Hezbollah and the Lebanese side - we see no equivalent attribution of burning cities and residences to Israel and its people.
The media myths continue unabated on Wednesday when an NBC reporter stationed on Cyprus tells a studio anchor that the American evacuation from Beirut will begin shortly and that the US embassy is providing a "safe haven" or "bomb shelters" for the thousands of US citizens as they wait.
But in truth, hundreds of Americans amass on an open-air seafront promenade near the embassy compound, where hundreds more crowd the streets and parking areas.
One US citizen, who gave her name only as Liliane, decided to return to her apartment after waiting out in the heat for several hours, disgusted she said by the disorganisation and curt attitude of US military personnel.
She described the plight of a woman with a newborn child sitting on the pavement with other children, pleading for help.
"They just didn't care," she said, drawing a contrast with television pictures of a smiling US ambassador escorting evacuees on to helicopters and while others were ferried away on chartered ships.
"They didn't show what was happening outside the boats. On TV it looks like the situation is under control."
Aljazeera
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Lebanon in Tears
Dozens more die as air strikes continue
Staff and agencies
Wednesday July 19, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Scores of people were killed today as Israel broadened its military offensive in Lebanon while also launching raids into the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
At least 57 Lebanese civilians were killed in the latest Israeli air strikes, raising the death toll of Lebanese to at least 293 since the offensive began last week.
Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, called on the international community to immediately call for a ceasefire to "end the Israeli onslaught" which had caused "unimaginable losses".
He said his country badly needed international humanitarian aid, addint that there were 500,000 displaced Lebanese people, shortages of food and medical supplies, and the hospitals were crippled, he said.
"I hope you won't let us down," Mr Siniora said in a televised appeal.
The Israeli offensive continued as international sources told the Guardian that the Bush administration had given Israel a one-week window to attack Hizbullah before it would join international calls for a ceasefire.
In other developments today, two Israeli soldiers died and nine were wounded during clashes with Hizbullah on the Lebanese side of the border near the coastal town of Naqoura. One Hizbullah militant was killed during the Israeli raid, aimed at finding weapons and tunnels. At least nine Palestinian fighters were also killed in Israeli military operations as the violence escalated in Gaza and the West Bank. Five of the militants were killed after Israeli tanks entered the Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza and one was killed in an air strike. In the West Bank city of Nablus, three fighters died when Israeli troops surrounded a prison where wanted militants were thought to be hiding. At least 107 Palestinian policemen were detained in the operation.
In the southern Lebanese village of Srifa, where at least 12 died in an Israeli air strike, the mayor told al-Arabiya television that a "massacre" had taken place. "There are dozens dead and massive destruction," he said. "Emergency services are putting out fires, they cannot reach the houses to recover bodies."
Outside Srifa, at least 29 other civilians were reported killed in air strikes on other parts of south and east Lebanon. Further north, Israeli jets hit Hizbullah's south Beirut stronghold and the Shweifat area outside the capital.
Three family members and a Sri Lankan maid were killed by a missile that struck the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, police and hospital officials said. The target was the office of a company belonging to Hizbullah.
Three Israeli Arabs, including two children, were killed when a presumed Hizbullah rocket slammed into a building in Nazareth, authorities said. Nazareth is inland from Haifa, around 25 miles south of the Lebanon border. More rockets hit Haifa this afternoon.
In Beirut, foreign nationals continued to leave. HMS York, a Royal Navy destroyer, left Beirut with more British evacuees bound for Cyprus. Around 80 Britons who arrived there this morning on HMS Gloucester were expected to fly out later today.
Tony Blair today told the Commons the violence was "tragic and terrible" for the Lebanese government and people but it could only stop "by undoing how it started".
The US government has denied it was playing any role in setting a timetable for Israeli action. The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was reported to be trying to drum up diplomatic support for what she called a ceasefire of "lasting value".
Such a plan would see the Lebanese army take over the south of the country, where Hizbullah guerrillas have operated. "The Middle East has been through too many spasms of violence and we have to deal with underlying conditions," Ms Rice said.
Israeli air strikes on Hizbullah militants in Lebanon had destroyed about half of the militia's arsenal, a senior Israeli military figure said today.
Brigadier General Alon Friedman said Israel had targeted Hizbullah rocket launchers in an effort to prevent the militants from aiming towards Tel Aviv. Israel believes that Hizbullah may have as many as 20 rockets that could reach Tel Aviv.
UN envoys were expected to suggest deploying Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon and enlarging an international force in the region to try to end the fighting between Israel and Hizbullah. The proposals will be presented to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, in New York after talks this week between the envoys and senior Israeli and Lebanese officials.
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Israel Targets, Flattens
Beirut TV Station HQ
July 19, 2006
By TRISH SCHUH
CounterPunch
After years of asymmetric attacks on the First Amendment- assassinating journalists, surveilling dissent, and censoring the free flow of information- the Democracy Mukhabarat reigns. Using national security to prohibit scrutiny or prosecution, the Bush administration instead labels opposition media as the criminal, declaring the Fourth Estate to be the Fourth Front. US policy equates 'unfriendly' media with enemy propaganda, declaring both "a weapon of war" and a legitimate military target.
In 2004, the US government also declared it a Terrorist Organization. Under US Executive Order 12334, Lebanon's Al Manar TV was the first television station ever to be legally designated a 'terrorist entity' equivalent to Al Qaeda. The Bush administration, at Israel's urging, silenced Al Manar satellite transmissions into the US. In 2006 the order was expanded to include Al Noor Radio, Al Ahed & Al Intiqad Newspapers and their parent company the Lebanese Media Group. On March 23, the US Treasury Department froze Al Manar's financial assets. On July 16, after five attempts, the Israeli Defense Forces blew Al Manar up. Eight employees were injured, but broadcasting continues elsewhere. IDF also bombed Al Noor Radio.
The Lebanese Media Group is affiliated with the Arab League, the Arab Federation of Journalists and the Union of Arab Audiovisual Media. It complies with Lebanese law and some of its staff are also democratically elected Ministers in Parliament.The organization has won dozens of awards from media associations around the world, and Al Manar footage has been shown by such western outlets as Reuters, AP, C-SPAN,BBC, EuroNews, FOX and CNN.
In Lebanon, each major religious sect has its own broadcasting outlet. But only LMG has been targeted. LMG's Al Manar TV is the broadcasting outlet for Hezbollah. On April 21, 2006 I asked Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora about the distinction. "Well of course we would prefer that all media be treated equally democratic, but we do not make American laws so I can not comment."
Responding to the State Department 's decision on December 17, 2004, local and international press demonstrated in Beirut to support Al Manar. The National Audiovisual Media Council denounced the US decision. Competing MBC TV producer/director Suzen Moussa challenged the decision's fairness, and Ghassan Hajjar, an Editorial Director for New TV told me: "International law protects the right of free speech equally to all world press- American, Israeli and Arab. No one has the right to accuse Al Manar of terrorism for speaking their minds."
In America's losing battle for Arab hearts and minds, Al Manar propaganda is as effective as American propaganda is impotent. Lebanon's Daily Star quoted an estimate that Al Manar has up to 200 million viewers via satellite, correspondents worldwide, and a nightly news program that often outranks Al Jazeera. It broadcasts in Arabic, English, French and Hebrew. An American AUB professor in Beirut, Dr. Judith Harik, told me that Al Manar often features video not seen elsewhere. "Many people here tune into Al Manar whether they are Christian, Druse, Sunnis or what, because Al Manar has very good reporting. Their analysis is very precise and very well thought out. They're very shrewd, forthright and are taken very seriously."
Especially in Israel. It was Al Manar's Hebrew broadcasts and images of IDF casualties during the occupation that galvanized Israeli public opinion against the war. The Israeli military had portrayed its losses as minimal, until Al Manar exposed the toll. Speaking to Adnkronos International, Hezbollah media director Hassan Ezz Eddine summarized the Israeli response: "We have to watch Al Manar to learn the truth about our boys in Lebanon."
As a "fair & balanced" Arab TV network, Al Manar TV dubs itself 'the Medium of resistance' to Israeli and American occupations. Al Manar's blunt, relentless criticism of US-Israeli policy has been called hate speech and incitement to violence. The US State Department deems Hezbollah and its TV station, "the A team of terror" and more dangerous than the "B team Al Qaeda." Ironically, the US-sponsored Tolo TV in Afghanistan regularly features Taliban/Al Qaeda interviews along with Taliban chanting. Attempts to halt such broadcasts were condemned by the international community as censorship.
In the Haret Hreik district of south Beirut, Al Manar headquarters are in a packed, threadbare neighborhood of family-owned shops and apartment buildings. The streets are marked by blue and yellow Zakat donation boxes decorated with upturned hands over an AK-47 raised in the fist of the Shia martyr Hussein, relative of the Prophet Muhammad. It is the Party of God's trademark, and it adorns everything from Hezbollah's yellow flags and pennants (Hezbollah owns exclusive rights to Lebanon's soccer league), to its coffee mugs for sale at area souvenir shops.
In 2005, I visited Al Manar's high tech offices. The state-of-the- art facilities included an extensive video archives/library, modern recording studios, sound booths and edit bays. In the Green Room I spoke to Sheikh Khoury Noor Ad Dine of the Hezbollah Political Council. He denied that the TV station committed atrocities or waged war on civilians. In fact, a large percentage of Al Manar employees are female. "Hezbollah differs from many Islamic groups in our treatment of women. We believe women have the ability like men to participate in all parts of life."
From its founding in the 1980s, Hezbollah women have headed education, medical and social service organizations. Most recently Hezbollah nominated several women to run in the Lebanese elections. It named Wafa Hoteit as a Chief of Al Noor Radio (also recently bombed), and promoted 37-year old Rima Fakhry to its highest ruling body, the Hezbollah Political Council. Part of Fakhry's duties include interpreting Islamic feminism in Sharia law for the Committee for Political Analysis.
I asked Sheikh Khoury if Sharia law liberated women to be recruited in the military or as 'suicide bombers'? "Not now. We don't need it at the present. If we need it in future we would." But the staff at Al Manar has no combat function. These sisters, daughters and mothers in the mujahedin shoot film, not bullets.
It was an issue I also raised with Al Manar film editor, Farah Noor Eddine, 30. Ms. Eddine has a B.A. in Journalism. She emphasized that she has relatives in the US and likes Americans. "Being Hezbollah doesn't mean that you are a military woman or a military creature. Hezbollah, the 'Party of God' is mentioned in the Qoran. It's a way of thinking or acting.We are ordinary persons." She is a vegetarian, plays ping pong, but has never fired a gun or seen a 'suicide vest.'
With Israel attacking Beirut, "Radical Islamic Terrorists" are again the demons of US media sensationalism. It was a charge that exasperated Health News anchor Mariam Karnib, so I asked her to define terrorism. "It is using excessive force or violence in a way that is not justified. They are calling us terrorist, but I know I am not like this. I was brought up here. We know our rights. We are not fools." Ms. Karnib, 29 has a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Social Science and is now earning a Masters in the Sociology of Communication. I asked her if Hezbollah women are familiar with the notorious Saudi website, Al Khansaa that trains female jihadis. She was not aware of it, she said, and when off-duty preferred happier fare. "I love Danielle Steele, Barbara Cartland and Barbara Taylor."
Al Manar TV has been boycotted for inciting violence and suicide attacks against Israel in its MTV-inspired videos, and "Death to America" is a signature slogan. Ms. Karnib dismissed the idea that Al Manar clips were powerful enough to produce this result, and felt sloganeering could not be taken seriously. The most effective training for 'militants' was American cartoons, she explained, which "are filled with alot more violence, terrorism and hatred- and they are aimed specifically at children." She also criticized video games which promote brutal killings of 'Arab Terrorists' and 'Muslim fanatics'. In the game of dueling propaganda, Hezbollah has met its match. Israel's media features extermination, liquidation and elimination as frequent themes, especially regarding the Palestinians: "those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. So if we want to remain alive we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day. Every day." Jerusalem Post, 5/21/04 More recently, the Chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party called for Arab Knesset members to be executed. Israel Koenig (from Israel's Al Hamishmar newspaper): "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." The Neocon state within a state has orchestrated its series of "Clean Break" Arab wars via the US-Israeli military/media complex, where the Fourth Estate doubles as a Fifth Column. The crusade against Al Manar TV originated with Israel's Natan Sharansky and former Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. The Israeli Defense Forces' Arab Media desk decided its propaganda leafletting of targeted areas prior to bombing them was inadequate. "Israel must concentrate on Arab media."
On the US side, Israeli Avi Jorisch wrote a book on Al Manar TV called "Beacon of Hatred" for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It was endorsed by Dennis Ross and used to pressure Congress and the Pentagon (which had not previously known of the station) to censor Al Manar.The coalition also pressured commerical advertisers to boycott Al Manar.
Anti-Defamation League, CAMERA.org, American Jewish Congress and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies allied with AIPAC against Al Manar worldwide. The neocon Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) took credit for persuading world leaders in Germany, Sweden, Australia and France to outlaw Al Manar. The Netherlands and the EU followed suit, and Spain was coerced into removing Al Manar from Latin American programming. MEMRI has recently announced a new front- France has just agreed to silence Iran's Al Sahar TV.
This success has emboldened an expanding wish-list of opposition media "soon to be banned." Like a press version of Daniel Pipe's "Campus Watch", Israel's Foreign Ministry, the IDF and its US surrogates are blacklisting a number of Arab media- Palestinian TV, Egyptian televsion, Saudi Arabia's Al Majd and ART TV, and Iran's Al Alam. Bomb attacks on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are well known, and now Al Manar's facilities have been completely flattened.
Trish Schuh writes about Middle East politics. She can be reached at: hsvariety@yahoo.com.
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'Catastrophe' looms in Lebanon as Israel pushes offensive
by Nayla Razzouk Tue Jul 18, 3:31 PM ET
BEIRUT (AFP) - The United Nations warned of a humanitarian "catastrophe" in Lebanon as Israel launched more deadly air attacks on the seventh day of an assault that has killed at least 245 and displaced half a million people.
Helicopters, ferries and cruise liners began taking foreign nationals to safety but Lebanese civilians remained trapped in a cycle of violence that has left them in fear of each new attack and their infrastructure in tatters.
"The situation is both alarming and catastrophic. There are about 500,000 people displaced already. The situation is extreme" the representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Beirut, Roberto Laurenti, told AFP.
Lebanon's grim body count continued to mount as Israeli pressed on with its campaign to defeat fighters of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, killing 28 people in attacks that flattened homes and hit an army barracks.
And across the border in northern Israel, a civilian was killed when a rocket hit a park in the resort of Nahariya in the latest of hundreds of rocket attacks by Hezbollah.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora accused Israel of "committing massacres against Lebanese civilians and working to destroy everything that allows Lebanon to stay alive."
"The intensifying aggression in this barbaric way proves that Israel has decided to push Lebanon back 50 years," he said.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defended the relentless bombardment, saying it was aimed at obtaining the release of two Israeli soldiers and the disarmament of Hezbollah in line with an existing UN resolution.
He told visiting UN envoys trying to broker a ceasefire that "Israel will continue the battle against Hezbollah and will continue to strike targets belonging to the group until it obtains the release of its captured soldiers and restores the security of Israeli citizens."
Israel said it has not ruled out a massive ground offensive in a bid to crush Hezbollah, which it has branded part of an "axis of terror" along with arch-enemies Tehran and Damascus and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Amid continued fears the conflict could spiral into a regional war involving Israel's arch foes Syria and Iran, the Israeli army said it had destroyed four trucks travelling from Syria with weapons and munitions destined for Hezbollah fighters in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.
"Our planes identified and destroyed these four trucks coming from Syria that were transporting weapons and munitions destined to replenish Hezbollah's stocks in south Lebanon," a spokeswoman said, adding that the contents and destination of the trucks were based on "intelligence".
Israel launched the all-out assault against Lebanon following Hezbollah's capture of two soldiers last Wednesday, battering the militant group's power base in Beirut's southern suburbs and hitting targets across the country.
The international airport has been knocked out, ports bombed, bridges destroyed, power stations set ablaze and houses turned to rubble in scenes reminiscent of the country's devastating 1975-1990 civil war.
Israel, which has sent ground troops back into Lebanon for the first time since it ended its occupation in May 2000, warned that its offensive could last at least another week -- emboldened by strong public support at home.
Foreign nations embarked on a massive operation to evacuate thousands of their nationals away from the bombing raids and devastation by air or sea to the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
Britain, which is hoping to evacuate some 5,000 of its nationals from Lebanon by the end of the week, started to pull out the first British citizens on board the destroyer HMS Gloucester.
The United States flew 120 citizens out of Beirut Tuesday on the third day of an air bridge that is to be followed by a mass evacuation by sea, amid criticism that Washington's reaction has been too slow.
Apparently agreeing to briefly halt Lebanon's sea blockade, Israel said it has made arrangements with several Western governments for a major evacuation of foreign nationals from Lebanon Wednesday involving 20 vessels.
The United Nations said it was evacuating all non-essential staff from the country.
The overall death toll now stands at at least 245, including 216 civilians and 23 soldiers, according to medics and police. More than 500 people have been wounded.
"I was at work at the time of the Israeli bombardments, and I went back home to find it in ashes," said one elderly woman who has fled her home in Beirut's southern suburbs.
"I was told to leave the area quickly, and for seven days now I've not known if my sons are under the rubble or safe somewhere."
Around 15 petrol stations have been blown up, along with fuel depots and water pumping stations. The highway from Beirut to the Syrian capital Damascus was cut on Tuesday after being repeatedly hit in recent days.
As the European Union and the United States prepared to send envoys to the region, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan outlined plans for an international force for Lebanon that he said should be "considerably larger" than the current 2,000-strong UN peacekeeping force.
But Israel -- which has always rejected the deployment of foreign forces in its conflict with the Palestinians -- said it was "too early" to discuss such a possibility.
The US State Department said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to the region, while EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is also preparing for a trip.
The United States has maintained Israel has every right to defend itself and also urged restraint over the offensive, which has split the international community and raised fears of dragging Syria and Iran into the conflict.
Twenty-five Israelis have been killed since last Wednesday, including 13 civilians in a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire across the border, and 12 servicemen.
Israel's assault on Lebanon opened up another battleground after it launched a similar offensive three weeks ago against Gaza where militants are holding a third soldier.
At least 87 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed since Israel sent troops back into the territory to try to free the captured soldier.
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Lebanon 'torn to shreds'
Thursday 20 July 2006, 13:15 Makka Time, 10:15 GMT
Lebanon's prime minister has pleaded for help to stop the "callous retribution" being inflicted by Israel.
Fuad Siniora said: "The country has been torn to shreds. Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?
"You want to support the government of Lebanon? Let me tell you ... no government can survive on the ruins of a nation.
"I hope you will not let us down. We the Lebanese want life. We have chosen life. We refuse to die."
Wednesday's death toll reached 74, as Israeli strikes killed 72 people in Lebanon and a Hezbollah rocket attack left two Arab-Israeli children dead in the northern Israeli town of Nazareth.
More than 300 people have now been killed and 500,000 displaced during the week-long conflict.
'Bunker' bombed
Jets dropped bombs on an area of southern Beirut where Israeli commanders said senior Hezbollah leaders were sheltering.
Israeli military officials said dozens of aircrafts dropped 23 tonnes of explosives on what they described as a bunker in the Bourj al-Barajneh section of southern Beirut.
Three unusally heavy explosions were heard in the evening from the southern districts of the capital.
An army spokesman said Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, may have been hiding at the site.
Hezbollah said none of its leaders was killed during the air strike.
A statement from the group said: "Hezbollah denies that any of its leaders or personnel were killed during the latest bombardment ... in the southern suburb."
The statement said that the bombed building was a mosque under construction and not a bunker housing Hezbollah leaders.
Wave of attacks
Throughout Wednesday, Israel pressed on with a wave of attacks from air and sea against southern and eastern Lebanon, flattening houses, destroying roads and hitting trucks, police said.
Twenty-five people were killed and 26 wounded in one village where residents said 10 houses were reduced to rubble by shelling from Israeli gunboats and aircraft.
Eleven other civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a four-storey building in the eastern Lebanese village of Nabi Sheet.
Israeli helicopters also fired rockets at a residential Christian district in Beirut, the first direct strikes in the centre of the capital, raising concerns about the evacuation operation under way at the nearby port.
Talks scheduled
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, were to meet Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, in New York on Thursday.
Annan has proposed the creation of an international force to restore calm in Lebanon.
Solana said: "We will work very, very hard to see if we can have an end of hostilities and the beginning of something of a political nature before the end of next week."
Comment: How many months or years will it take to rebuild Lebanon? Who will pay for Israel's crimes?
The dead cannot be brought back to life. There is no payment or reconstruction that can return a child to its mother's arms or a wife to her husband.
Yet the leaders of Israel, aided and abetted by the leaders of the rest of the world, and the complicit silence of the people, continue to bomb Lebanon in retaliation for the capture of two Israeli soldiers who shouldn't have been in Lebanon in the first place.
Do you feel sick to your stomach when you hear the news? Are you angry that this violence continues?
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Hezbollah bunker bombed: Israeli military
Last Updated Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:53:00 EDT
CBC News
Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected Hezbollah bunker in southern Beirut late Wednesday, but the militant organization said none of its members were killed.
Israeli military officials said warplanes dropped 20 tonnes of explosives on the bunker, which is believed to be used by senior Hezbollah officials and is in the Bourj al-Barajneh section of southern Beirut.
Hezbollah later faxed a statement to Reuters news agency, saying none of its "leaders or personnel" were killed in the bombing, which the group said took place at a religious facility it had nothing to do with.
Israel has said that one of the objectives of its offensive in Lebanon is to eliminate top Hezbollah figures, including leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Earlier Wednesday evening, three large explosions rocked southern Beirut in one of the deadliest days so far in the eight days of violence between Israel and Hezbollah. The blasts were reported in Beirut's Dahiya district, home to Hezbollah's already flattened headquarters.
As many as 58 people in Lebanon were killed in Israeli air strikes on Wednesday, while four Israelis died in rocket attacks and clashes with Hezbollah militants.
Israel launched its military campaign against the Lebanese-based militant group eight days ago, following a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli army post. Eight soldiers were killed and two were seized.
Hezbollah has responded with rocket attacks in northern Israel.
The death toll has reached 300 in Lebanon, according to the government, and 29 in Israel.
Two of the Israeli deaths were soldiers killed in a clash with Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon. Israel had sent the military across the border to search for tunnels and weapons.
The Israeli military said the clash, which took place just inside the Lebanese border, killed two Israeli soldiers. Officials with the Lebanese-based Hezbollah said one of their fighters was also killed.
Hours later, Hezbollah fired a Katyusha rocket into northern Israel, killing three people, including two children, in the town of Nazareth. The Israeli Arab children, aged three and seven, were killed as they played on the street outside a house.
The strike marked the first direct hit on a holy town during the current conflict. Nazareth, located about 30 kilometres from the Lebanese border, is a holy place for Christians, who believe it is where Jesus grew up.
CBC's Peter Armstrong reported from Jerusalem that 70 rockets fell in the space of an hour on Nazareth on Wednesday. He said Nazareth is largely an Arab city in Israel and the home to many Israeli Arabs.
Armstrong said more rocket attacks are expected in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, which has been targeted repeatedly by Hezbollah missiles.
Crushed half of Hezbollah's arsenal: Israel
Israeli air strikes overnight levelled close to 20 houses and buildings in Lebanon, with the military saying it had crushed "about 50 per cent" of Hezbollah's arsenal. "It will take us time to destroy what is left," Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman, a senior army commander, told Israeli Army Radio.
As many as 17 Lebanese were killed in an Israeli air strike in the southern village of Srifa.
As well, Lebanese security officials say up to 41 other people were killed in air strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon.
Also Wednesday, Israeli air strikes hit a Christian suburb of Beirut for the first time since the offensive began. The target was a water-drilling machine on the back of a truck.
And warplanes again bombed the runway of Beirut International Airport, a frequent target of the Israelis.
Deaths in Gaza, West Bank
At least nine Palestinians were killed Wednesday in violence in Gaza and the West Bank.
Four gunmen and two civilians were killed as Israeli tanks pushed into the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. About 45 more people were injured, along with five Israeli soldiers, said the Israeli army.
In the occupied West Bank town of Nablus, Israeli troops shot three Palestinian gunmen in a raid on a security compound, said the army.
Israel moved tanks and troops along the Israeli border with Gaza in late June after Palestinian militants attacked an Israeli army post and seized a soldier.
Israel has fired on Palestinian targets, including offices of the governing Hamas party, and power stations, while Palestinians have fired rockets at Israeli communities.
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Heavy Fighting Reported on Israel-Lebanon Border
By Jim Teeple
Jerusalem
20 July 2006
At least two Israeli troops were wounded, Thursday, in heavy fighting with Hezbollah militants, as Israeli air strikes continued in Lebanon and Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel. More than 300 people, nearly all civilians, have died in Lebanon and at least 15 civilians have been killed in Israel by Hezbollah rockets, since fighting began nine days ago. Hezbollah militants continued rocket attacks in Israel, Thursday, striking the cities of Haifa and Tiberias.
For the second day in a row, there was ground fighting between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops in Lebanese territory. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says Israeli troops are reluctant to enter Lebanon where they could face a disadvantage against Hezbollah forces.
"We know exactly what this can bring about. We know what mayhem this can cause. And, this is precisely what we want to avoid," he said. "We do not want to be dragged into this. This is precisely what Hezbollah is trying to do, to drag us into a ground battle, because they know they have an advantage as a guerrilla organization."
Thursday's Israeli air strikes targeted Beirut's southern suburbs, where Israeli warplanes Wednesday dropped 23 tons of explosives on what Israeli officials say was a bunker used by senior Hezbollah leaders. Hezbollah says the target was a mosque - a charge denied by Israeli officials.
Lebanon's prime minister says the bombing has "torn the country into shreds." Nearly all of the casualties in Lebanon have been civilian casualties. Yigal Palmor of Israel's foreign ministry says that is because Hezbollah has based its operations in civilian areas.
"We never target civilian objectives. However, Hezbollah has been using the population as a human shield," he said. "They have been storing weapons and rockets in civilian homes and buildings and they have been firing rockets from within villages and civilian population centers."
Lebanese officials say more than 500,000 people have been displaced as a result of the fighting. Lebanon is appealing for international assistance. A small contingent of U.S. Marines is in Lebanon to help evacuate more than 1,000 American citizens. Other Western nations are continuing to evacuate their citizens to Cyprus.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the bombing will continue, as long as Hezbollah continues to hold two Israeli soldiers it captured last week, and until the Lebanese Army moves into southern Lebanon - into positions now occupied by Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, Israel dropped leaflets across the Gaza Strip, Thursday, warning Palestinians that anyone hiding weapons will be targeted. Shortly afterwards, Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinian militants in central Gaza. Israel also carried out an air strike in the area. Palestinian authorities say several Palestinians were killed in the exchange.
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Israel Hints at a Full-Scale Invasion
By HUSSEIN DAKROUB
Associated Press
Jul 20, 2006
Summary: Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.
Israel has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, reluctant to send in ground troops on terrain dominated by Hezbollah.
But an Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Israel broadcast warnings Wednesday into south Lebanon, telling civilians to leave the region - a possible prelude to a larger Israeli ground operation.
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.
Israeli warplanes also launched new airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, shortly after daybreak, followed by strikes in the guerrillas' heartland in the south and eastern Bekaa Valley.
The strikes followed bombings Wednesday that killed as many as 70 people, according to Lebanese television, making it the deadliest day since the fighting began July 12.
Russia sharply criticized Israel over its onslaught against Lebanon, now in its ninth day, sparked when Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Israel's actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" and repeating calls for an immediate cease-fire.
At least 306 people have been killed in Lebanon since the Israeli campaign began, according to the security forces control room that collates casualties. In Israel, 29 people have been killed, including 14 soldiers. The U.N. has said at least a half-million people have been displaced in Lebanon.
About 40 U.S. Marines landed in Beirut to help Americans onto the USS Nashville, which will carry 1,200 evacuees bound for Cyprus in the second mass U.S. exodus from Lebanon. Thousands of Europeans also fled on ships - continuing one of the largest evacuation operations since World War II. An estimated 13,000 foreign nationals have been evacuated.
Israel's series of small ground forays across the border have aimed to push back Hezbollah guerrillas who have continued firing rockets into northern Israel despite more than a week of massive bombardment - raising the question of whether air power alone can suppress them. Guerrillas fired 25 rockets into Israel on Thursday, which caused no casualties.
But the guerrillas have been fighting back hard on the ground, wounding three Israeli soldiers Thursday, a day after killing two. An Israeli unit sent in to ambush Hezbollah guerrillas also had a fierce gunbattle with a cell of militants.
In another clash, just across the border from the Israeli town of Avivim, guerrillas fired a missile at an Israeli tank, seriously wounding one soldier. Hezbollah said its guerrillas destroyed two tanks trying to enter the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras, across from Avivim.
Israel has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, reluctant to send in ground troops on terrain dominated by Hezbollah.
But an Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Israel broadcast warnings Wednesday into south Lebanon, telling civilians to leave the region - a possible prelude to a larger Israeli ground operation.
"There is a possibility - all our options are open. At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open," Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Leaflets dropped Wednesday night warned the population that any trucks traveling in Lebanese towns south of the Litani River would be suspected of carrying weapons and rockets and could be targeted by Israeli forces.
The Lebanese government is under international pressure to deploy troops in the south to rein in Hezbollah guerrillas _ but even before the fighting, many considered it too weak to do so without deeply fracturing the country.
An Italian newspaper quoted Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora on Thursday as making his strongest statement yet against the Shiite militant group. But Saniora's office quickly said he was misquoted.
The Milan-based Corriere della Sera quoted him as saying in an interview that Hezbollah has created a "state within a state," adding: "The entire world must help us disarm Hezbollah. But first we need to reach a cease-fire."
Saniora later issued a statement denying the remarks. He said he told the paper the international community must help press Israel from Chebaa Farms, a small border area that Lebanon claims and Hezbollah points to as proof of the continued need for armed resistance.
Saniora told the paper that "the continued presence of Israeli occupation of Lebanese lands in the Chebaa Farms region is what contributes to the presence of Hezbollah weapons. The international community must help us in (getting) an Israeli withdrawal from Chebaa Farms so we can solve the problem of Hezbollah's arms," the statement said. There was no immediate comment from the newspaper.
On Wednesday, Saniora appealed for a cease-fire, saying Lebanon "has been torn to shreds." Warplanes pounded southern areas where Hezbollah operates, but civilian residential neighborhoods bore the brunt, with dozens of houses destroyed.
Dallal said Israel had hit "1,000 targets in the last eight days - 20 percent were missile-launching sites and the rest were control and command centers, missiles and so forth."
Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan insisted the Israeli army never targets civilians but has no way of knowing whether they are in an area it is striking. "Civilians might be in the area because Hezbollah is operating from civilian territory," Nehushtan said.
He said that Hezbollah has fired more than 1,100 rockets at civilian areas in Israel since the fighting began and that 12 percent - or about 750,000 people - of Israel's population lives in areas that can be targeted by the guerrillas.
Israel said its airstrikes so far have destroyed about half of Hezbollah's arsenal - and it has been trying to take out its top leaders.
The Israeli military said aircraft dropped 23 tons of explosives on what it believed was a bunker for senior Hezbollah leaders in the Bourj al-Barajneh neighborhood of Beirut between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Hezbollah said none of its members was hurt and denied a leadership bunker was in the area, saying a mosque under construction was hit. It has a headquarters compound in Bourj al-Barajneh that is off limits to Lebanese police and army, so security officials could not confirm the strike.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman told CNN his country would not comment about the attack until it is sure of all the facts. But he added, "I can assure you that we know exactly what we hit. ... This was no religious site. This was indeed the headquarters of the Hezbollah leadership."
On Thursday, Israeli jets struck houses believed used by Hezbollah officials in the town of Hermel in the western Bekaa Valley, wounding at least three.
Israeli warplanes also destroyed a five-story residential and commercial building that reportedly once held a Hezbollah office in the Bekaa Valley city of Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold, witnesses said. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Two civilians were killed late Wednesday in strikes on bridges in Lebanon's far north, near Tripoli, the National News Agency said.
Israeli jets also raided a detention center in the southern town of Khiam Thursday, witnesses and local TV said. The notorious Khiam prison, formerly run by Israel's Lebanese militia allies during its occupation, was destroyed in four bombing runs, they said.
International pressure mounted on Israel and the United States to agree to a cease-fire. The destruction and rising death toll deepened a rift between the U.S. and Europe.
The Bush administration is giving Israel a tacit green light to take the time it needs to neutralize Hezbollah, but the Europeans fear mounting civilian casualties will play into the hands of militants and weaken Lebanon's democratically elected government.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour criticized the rising toll, saying the shelling was invariably killing innocent civilians.
"International law demands accountability," she said in Geneva. "The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."
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'Is this the price to pay?' Lebanese PM asks
Last Updated Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:53:50 EDT
CBC News
Lebanon's leader appealed Wednesday for an end to eight days of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the violence has killed 300 people in his country, wounded 1,000 and displaced more than half a million others.
"Is this what the international community calls the right of self-defence? Is this the price to pay?" Prime Minister Fuad Saniora asked, in a swipe at countries that have defended Israel's decision to send in planes, tanks and troops as measured self-defence.
Saniora's comment, made at a gathering in Beirut that included U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, included the first official casualty figures out of Lebanon since Israel began military strikes after Lebanese-based Hezbollah militants conducted a cross-border raid on July 12.
Saniora also said he would "spare no avenue" to make Israel compensate for Lebanon's "unimaginable losses."
But Israel's cabinet said it has no plans to back down.
"The intensive fighting against the Hezbollah organization shall continue ... with the aim of returning the kidnapped soldiers to Israel, bringing about the cessation of rocket fire on communities and Israeli targets and to remove this threat," said a statement from the inner cabinet.
Rice continues diplomatic efforts
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the violence continued as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke over the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
The U.S. has rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying the captured soldiers must first be returned and the rocket attacks end.
Rice has said she is trying to build support for a ceasefire of "lasting value" that would see Lebanon's army take over control of the country's south.
A day earlier, she said she hoped for a ceasefire when conditions were conducive.
She will meet with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and Solana on Thursday evening in New York and could travel to the Middle East as early as this weekend.
A UN team is on its way back to New York to brief Annan, who will deliver the report to the Security Council on Thursday.
The team, sent earlier this week, was denied entry to Syria because Damascus objected to a member who has written previous reports demanding Syrian troops leave Lebanon.
World leaders have been split on their reaction to the crisis, with Canada and the United States defending Israel's military actions as a reasonable response while some other Western countries condemned it as an overreaction.
Arbour suggests killings could be war crimes
Meanwhile, UN human rights chief Louise Arbour said the scale of killings in the region could involve war crimes.
"International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligation to protect civilians during hostilities," said Arbour in a statement Wednesday.
"This obligation is also expressed in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity. ...The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."
Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court judge and war crimes prosecutor, didn't single out any government.
Her comments come as UNICEF and the World Health Organization said the violence is hindering the movement of humanitarian supplies and warned of the serious psychological effects of the fighting.
"The psychological impact is serious, as people, including children, have witnessed the death or injury of loved ones and destruction of their homes and communities," the organizations said in a joint statement.
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A Silent World
France pushes UN for action on conflict
Simon Tisdall and Ewen MacAskill
Thursday July 20, 2006
The Guardian
Security council move challenges US and British approach
France challenged the Bush administration's hands-off approach to the Lebanon crisis yesterday by pushing for immediate action by the UN security council to stop the fighting.
The move came as the UN human rights chief warned that Israeli and Hizbullah leaders could face war crimes charges.
Angered by US stalling, France circulated proposals at the UN which could form the basis of a binding resolution. The proposals will be discussed in private today after Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, briefs the security council on the findings of an emergency UN mission to the region. Terje Roed-Larsen, a member of the mission, said yesterday there should be no more delays. "We're in a hurry. It has to happen fast," he said. "There is serious work to be done in order to reach conclusions, which will be presented to the parties."
The mission is expected to propose creating a buffer zone on the Israeli-Lebanese border, a beefed-up international force, deployment of the Lebanese army into the south and a pullback by Hizbullah as well as the release of captured Israeli soldiers as part of possible prisoner exchange.
A French diplomatic source said: "The security council cannot remain inactive. There has been a general call for the UN to act from the Group of Eight, from the Arab League and the European Union - they are all calling for it. France is taking the lead because of its historic role in Lebanon, and because it holds the presidency of the security council."
The French move has tacit support from Russia and China, which have criticised Israel's response to attacks by Hizbullah. But it will cause problems with the US and Britain. A security council source characterised the initial US response as a mixture of "nervousness and irritation".
Louise Arbour, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, said yesterday the scale of killing in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories could constitute war crimes. The obligation to protect civilians during hostilities was laid down in international criminal law "which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity", she said in a statement.
"The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."
Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, was asked repeatedly whether the US was deliberately delaying diplomatic action in order to give Israel another week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah. He denied this was the case.
Asked why George Bush was not pursuing more active peace making by phoning leaders such as Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, Mr Snow replied: "Because the track record stinks."
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, met Mr Bush yesterday to discuss a planned trip to Israel, Lebanon and possibly Egypt over the next few days. But the White House has blocked calls, repeated yesterday by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, for an immediate cessation of hostilities by both sides.
Last week the US vetoed a proposed resolution on Israeli actions in Gaza, sponsored by Arab countries. John Bolton, Washington's ambassador to the UN, has argued against any security council action before Ms Rice returns from the region.
Responding to the French proposals, Mr Bolton said yesterday: "The notion that you just declare a ceasefire and act as if that's going to solve the problem I think is simplistic. Among other things ... I'd like to know when there's been an effective ceasefire between a terrorist organisation and a state in the past."
Since the schism with the US over Iraq in 2003, France has slowly rebuilt relations with Washington. They cooperated closely over last year's withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. But the latest crisis is straining their collaboration.
The French proposals, circulated among the other 14 security council members, call for "a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire", and express "extreme concern at the escalation of hostilities ... and at the deteriorating humanitarian situation and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure".
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Saudi, France to seek common stance on conflict
RIYADH, July 19, 2006 (AFP)
Saudi Arabia's crown prince was due in Paris Wednesday for talks with French President Jacques Chirac aimed at finding a joint stance on the conflict in Lebanon, press reports said.
The visit "comes at a time when the region is going through renewed tension, necessitating consultation between our two countries, whose positions are very close," Chirac wrote in a "message to the Saudi people" published in the daily Al-Riyadh.
The daily Okaz said that Riyadh and Paris would seek to formulate a "joint position to end the bloodshed, shield Lebanon from destruction and rebuild the Lebanese economy."
Saudi Arabia and France played a key role in assisting the
reconstruction of Lebanon in the wake of its 1975-1990 civil war, a period which also witnessed a full-scale Israeli invasion in 1982.
Lebanon has already suffered losses of more than half a billion dollars and seen its crucial tourist season wrecked since Israel launched a devastating assault a week ago which has targeted the country's infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia has urged international action to end hostilities between Israel and Shiite Hezbollah militants, while France has suggested ideas that could form the basis of a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
France has also indicated it wants to help oil-rich Saudi Arabia "preserve its external security, whether in terms of training personnel, cooperation between the armed forces or the modernization of its equipment," Chirac said.
The visit of Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, who is also defense minister, might lead to the signing of defense contracts, according to French sources.
The French presidential palace said Tuesday that Chirac would meet with Sultan on Thursday as planned but that an additional meeting had been set for Wednesday.
Chirac visited Saudi Arabia in March without clinching a defense deal, but the two countries are in talks over the supply to Riyadh of helicopters, Rafale fighters, refueling planes, tanks, frigates and submarines, among others.
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United Against the U.S., Israel
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
July 20, 2006
Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are partners in that sense, and they are gaining clout. The Iraq war has played a key role, analysts say.
SAYEDA ZAINAB, Syria - One of the hottest-selling items in Mustafa Hahel's shop here off Baghdad Street is a poster showing the leaders of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah side by side, smiling pleasantly and surrounded by roses and daffodils. Portraits of the founder of Hamas are on sale just down the road.
"This is one country, Syria and Lebanon, and as for Iran, how can the average person be anything but grateful to Iran for supporting the resistance?" said Hahel, whose business lies outside one of the most famous shrines in Shiite Islam, the mosque of Sayeda Zainab.
If there is a crossroads for the Middle East's axis of fundamentalist Shiites, hard-line Sunnis and Arab nationalists, it must be in this dusty, gridlocked suburb of Damascus. Angrily dispossessed people have landed in succession from the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Iran and southern Lebanon, whose residents have been arriving dazed and tearful by the car- and busload for days.
There is broad opposition to the U.S. and Israel across the Middle East. But the resistance heroes, radical clerics and rogue heads of state dear to the residents of Sayeda Zainab include the late Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian leader Bashar Assad. They are the figureheads of an increasingly powerful alliance aimed at countering U.S. and Israeli policy.
"We are different in every single scope in this community," said Wasef Mahmoud, a 31-year-old Palestinian whose family left northern Israel after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. "But we have one thing in common: Israel is against us, and we are against Israel."
They are against the United States too. At a religious school housing Lebanon refugees, an American's brief query Wednesday was met with angry shouts and a plea from the proprietor to leave as quickly as possible to avoid trouble.
"Death to America!" three men shouted, rushing at the door before being pulled back. "We hate you!"
Many Lebanese, who pressed Syria to withdraw from their country last year, would disagree with Hahel's characterization of Lebanon and Syria as one country. But it was Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that first sent Shiite Lebanese fleeing toward the ornate mosaic and silver-spangled shrine here dedicated to the prophet Muhammad's granddaughter. Many of them subsequently returned home.
Palestinians had already set up a small refugee town here, as had Syrians who fled the Golan Heights when Israel captured it in 1967. Iranians ousted from Iraq by Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war flooded in when Iran wouldn't take them back. A wave of Iraqi refugees arrived after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. And now the Lebanese are coming again.
Syria's secular regime, governing a nation of mainly Sunni Muslims, forged a friendship with Shiite Iran years ago based on their mutual antagonism toward Hussein. Hezbollah and Hamas come from entirely separate schools of Islamic theology, but the two found common cause in their hatred of Israel.
Now all four are united in a program whose ultimate goal is ejecting Israel from at least the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Lebanon, undermining pro-Western Arab governments.
Analysts here say a key factor in solidifying the partnership was the current war in Iraq, which not only raised fears among pro-Western Sunni Arab leaders that Shiites were gaining power, but also provided a successful model for long-running guerrilla warfare against the U.S.
"The insurgency in Iraq was able up to this moment to stand against the United States Army. And this has taught a lesson to the others. It has changed the whole equation in the Middle East," said Nabil Samman, head of the Center for Research and Documentation, a Damascus think tank.
"We're not talking about open war with the United States. We're not adventurists. We know very well our limitations," said Mohammed Habash, an independent member of parliament and director of the Islamic Studies Center in the Syrian capital.
"But we believe there are more tools than this kind of war in the Middle East," he said. "It's not a secret to tell you that there are a lot in Syria who have a desire to work in the sphere of resistance, to fight."
A previously unheard-of group calling itself the National Popular Coalition for the Liberation of the Golan Heights issued a statement last week "calling to open the door for volunteers in the resistance movement to defend our land."
"We have no doubt now that resistance is the only way to get back our Arab rights," it said.
Analysts say the Iraq war also played a part in pushing Syria closer to Iran. Moderate Arab governments became worried about the rising influence of Shiite Islam after the Iraqi elections, at the same time that they were becoming alarmed about Iran's nuclear program.
"The Arab countries, with Iran having its nuclear plans, sort of tried to make Syria choose between Iran and them," said Georges Jabbour, a legislator from the ruling Baath Party and an advisor to the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, father of the current head of state.
"But Syria was aware of the importance of the Iranian role in the region even before the Islamic Revolution" of 1979, he said. The elder Assad, he said, "was a strategist, he was a military man. He looked at the map and saw that Iran had a very big place on the map."
Some Syrians say they've been waiting decades for the kinds of apocalyptic pronouncements Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has made against Israel.
"Ahmadinejad is a good man, because he wants to get rid of Israel," said Hahel, at the poster shop. "For Muslims, there is a promise that the state of Israel will not survive. If not now, then 100 years from now. This is God's promise to the Muslims."
The Iranians have helped restore the shrine here in Sayeda Zainab and are handing out alms to Lebanese who arrive.
A few blocks away, the Persian on the street signs gives way to Arabic. Vendors selling fat tomatoes and lamb stuffed with parsley have Iraqi accents. But the words are the same.
"The Americans want to make it a Crusaders-Muslim war, and if it keeps going like this, they will get one," said Abu Jaffar, an unemployed Iraqi musician who gathers daily with other displaced Iraqis, including several former soldiers in Hussein's army, to drink lemon-lime sodas on Baghdad Street.
"With what's going on in Lebanon, I can tell you that all the Arabs are supporters of Hezbollah," he said. "Because they are Muslims."
Comment: This article is a fine example of the kind of propaganda that is seen every day in the US media. It reinforces the idea that Israel is the poor victim in a sea of Arab hostility. That Israel has been the aggressor over and again, that Israel has no respect for international law or human rights when it comes to the Palestinians or their Arab nrighbors, is passed over in silence.
Israel is the nuclear power in the Middle East, yet there are no calls for Israel to disarm. No, instead the drums of war are being sounded against Iran. Such double standards and hypocrisy are not unnoticed in the Arab world.
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US orders nine warships to waters off Lebanon
by Jim Mannion Tue Jul 18, 4:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States ordered nine warships to waters off the Lebanese coast amid fears of possible terrorist attacks on ships evacuating US nationals, officials said.
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Though only 124 Americans have been brought out so far, the State Department defended the speed of the evacuation, calling it "highly organized, very efficient, very active."
Six days after the start of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, the first US chartered cruise ship arrived in Beirut to pick up US citizens, and the US Navy ordered the nine ships to waters off Lebanon.
The vessels, including four amphibious assault ships now in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, will be used to bring out large numbers of Americans and provide security amid fears of terrorist attacks, said Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of US Fifth Fleet.
"I'm concerned about attacks on ships, you bet," he told reporters here via videolink from his headquarters in Bahrain.
Ferries and cruise ships have been able to move freely between Lebanon and Cyprus so far, and the US navy has been making arrangements to hire more commercial vessels to bring out Americans, officials said.
But Walsh said, "It's prudent not to assume anything when we go into an environment like this. So we make all preparations in our planning and deliberations so we're ready for any contingency."
"That sort of scenario is something we are planning for," he said.
The first of four amphibious warships is expected to enter the eastern Mediterranean on Wednesday and the others will arrive over the course of the week, he said.
They include the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima, two amphibious dock landing ships, and an amphibious transport dock ship.
About 2,200 marines are aboard the Iwo Jima, including a battalion and a medium lift helicopter squadron.
Walsh said landing craft and helicopters will be used to move Americans to the safety of the amphibious warships which he said can hold about 1,000 people.
A guided missile destroyer, the USS Gonzalez, was already in the area to provide security, officials said. Other warships were coming from elsewhere in the European theater, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, Walsh said.
The Orient Queen, a Greek cruise ship hired Monday, docked in Beirut and was boarding Americans, and another chartered vessel with space for 1,400 passengers was due to arrive Wednesday, Walsh said.
"The threat level presently allows for to us move the ferry back and forth. We will take advantage of that to the maximum extent possible," he said.
"But we'll also have warships positioned strategically and tactically in order to ensure the safe and secure passage of American citizens from Lebanon to Cyprus," he said.
Until now the US evacuation has consisted of a half dozen CH-53 helicopters that have flown only 124 Americans to safety in Cyprus since Sunday.
Walsh said the mobilization of US naval forces had been ordered earlier but took time to assemble because of the distances involved, and because the marines aboard the amphibious ships were engaged in an exercise in Jordan.
France and Italy already have major evacuations underway. About 900 mostly French nationals arrived in Cyprus on Tuesday by chartered ferry from Beirut. An Italian warship brought out another 300 people Monday.
Democrats wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging that all resources be made available for a swift evacuation of Americans.
"Reports that American citizens who have been registered with the State Department are not being evacuated immediately are enormously troubling," Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader, and senior senators Carl Levin and Ted Kennedy, said in the letter.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, criticized the State Department for demanding that US citizens sign agreements to repay their transportation costs.
"I think we moved very fast," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN television.
"We're highly organized, very efficient, very active. We're on this one and doing a good job," he said.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States was in discussions to hire four or five other commercial vessels of varying size for the evacuation.
Israel has imposed a naval blockade on Lebanon, and its fighter jets have severely damaged Beirut International Airport and struck roads, bridges and other infrastructure in retaliation for the Hezbollah missile attacks on northern Israel.
The US embassy has discouraged Americans from trying to get out of the country by road toSyria, warning of the danger of Israeli airstrikes.
The State Department estimates there are 25,000 Americans in Lebanon, and about 15,000 of them have registered with the US embassy.
Military officials said helicopters flew out 60 people on Tuesday, 43 on Monday and 21 on Sunday. Another 60 passengers were due to fly back later in the day, they said.
But the State Department was generally reserving those flights for Americans with special needs and will rely instead on chartered vessels for the bulk of evacuees, Whitman said.
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Russia Calls Israel's Attacks on Lebanon Disproportional, Urges Ceasefire
Created: 20.07.2006 16:53 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:53 MSK
MosNews
The scale of destruction caused in Lebanon by the Israeli military has gone far beyond Israel's stated goals, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday, RIA Novosti news agency reports.
Israel has carried out bombings and air strikes in Lebanon, and sent its troops into the country, in a wave of violence that began nine days ago when Islamic militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli servicemen in a cross-border raid. Israel's attacks have left around 300 Lebanese dead and displaced 500,000, according to the Lebanese prime minister. At least 29 Israelis have also lost their lives.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said, "Moscow confirms its commitment to a decisive war against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We also confirm our demands that the captured Israeli servicemen be unconditionally freed. However, the unprecedented scale of fatalities and destruction shows that actions [on the part of Israel] to achieve this goal have gone far beyond the bounds of an anti-terrorist operation."
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a Sunday night news conference at the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations that, according to Arab sources, Israel was pursuing goals other than the release of its hostages.
The ministry statement said an immediate ceasefire was the first urgent step needed to end the escalating violence. "The first urgent step in the current critical situation must be an immediate ceasefire and end to bloodshed. We support the urgent call for this made by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora."
The Lebanese leader called for an end to Israel's military action - which he called "barbaric" - in an appeal Wednesday. He also asked for immediate humanitarian aid. The Russian Foreign Ministry said a ceasefire would enable civilians to leave the conflict zones safely, and would allow political and diplomatic negotiations to begin.
The ministry said it had also sent a proposal to deliver aid to Lebanon.
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EU demands ceasefire in Lebanon
Thursday, 20 July 2006, 15:09 GMT 16:09 UK
The European Union is calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon amid growing fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.
It has urged Israel and Hezbollah militants to end hostilities, and announced 10m euros (£6.8m) in aid for civilians suffering in the conflict.
Bombed roads are hampering aid efforts, with the UN warning the humanitarian crisis is worsening by the hour.
The EU intervention comes as Israeli soldiers are fighting militants inside Lebanon, Israeli officials say.
Israel is also continuing its bombing campaign, carrying out 80 air strikes early on Thursday.
'Catastrophe'
As thousands of foreigners continue to flee the country with the help of their governments, aid agencies are expressing increasing concern for those who will be left behind, especially people in the south who have been displaced by the fighting.
UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said the wounded could not be helped because Israeli air raids had cut off roads.
Without a truce allowing aid agencies to begin the relief effort there would be a "catastrophe", he warned.
On Thursday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will try to persuade the Security Council to take action to end the violence.
He will then hold a private meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Mr Annan has already repeated calls for a new international force to be deployed in the Lebanese border region.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU aid would be dedicated to those in most urgent need "so that we can express our solidarity to the civilians that are suffering for this terrible conflict".
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen of Finland, which holds the EU presidency, said the 25-member bloc was "acutely concerned" about the crisis.
"The EU stands ready to help. A strong international presence in southern Lebanon, approved by the Security Council, may be needed," he said.
"However, all parties to the conflict must first commit to a ceasefire."
Lebanon's president has also called for an immediate ceasefire, describing Israel's offensive - which has killed about 300 people and displaced an estimated 500,000 - as a "massacre".
Stranded in the war zone
The nine days of fighting - triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid - have left 29 Israelis dead, including 15 civilians killed by rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel.
Earlier, Captain Eric Schneider from the Israeli Defence Force told the BBC there was heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants in two places inside Lebanon's border.
Hezbollah issued a statement saying that it had destroyed two Israeli tanks. The Israeli army has not confirmed this, but did say at least three Israeli soldiers had been injured.
The Israeli public security minister, Avi Dichter, said Hezbollah had to understand that its "time is up" and that Israel will only accept a Lebanese government force at the border.
In other developments:
* Those being evacuated on Thursday include about 3,000 Britons, who are being transferred onto three Royal Navy ships
* US marines from the USS Nashville have come ashore in Beirut to assist with the evacuation of US citizens
* Cyprus says it cannot cope with the influx of evacuees, expected to reach 60,000, and appeals to the European Commission for additional planes to fly evacuees to their home countries
* The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, warns that those involved in the spiral of violence between Israel and Lebanon could face war crimes charges if they are found to have deliberately attacked civilians
* Pope Benedict XVI calls for a day of prayer on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire in the crisis
The Israelis say they are fighting to end the control of Hezbollah over the lives of ordinary people on both sides of the border.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign against the militants would continue "as long as necessary" to free its captured soldiers and ensure Hezbollah was not a threat.
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Britain fears assault on Hezbollah will backfire
By Bronwen Maddox, Foreign Editor
Sunday Times
July 20, 2006
BRITAIN fears that Israel's assault on Hezbollah is failing to cripple the guerrilla group and that continued bombardment will bring huge civilian casualties in Lebanon for little military gain.
The rising concern that any further Israeli military action could intensify the crisis, expressed by senior officials yesterday, strikes a much more urgent tone than the American position, which accepts a continued Israeli campaign to crush the Shia militant group.
Yesterday was the heaviest day for civilian casualties since Israel's bombardment began last week, with at least 63 killed and scores more wounded. A total of 315 Lebanese, mostly civilians, have been killed and hundreds injured since the start of the Israeli offensive.
Last night dozens of planes dropped 23 tonnes of explosives on what the Army said was a bunker in south Beirut used by Hezbollah's leadership. The group said none of is leaders where killed in the attack.
A senior British official said: "Our concern is that Israeli military action is not having the desired effect. We're not seeing the level of impact [which Israel and its allies would want]." Hezbollah was "still highprofile in southern Beirut", even if its claims to have lost only three fighters underplayed the damage done. "We're not seeing any large-scale destruction of Hezbollah rockets," the official added, "and we don't know where they are."
Israel claimed yesterday to have destroyed half of Hezbollah's rockets, which the guerrilla group has been firing steadily across the Lebanese border. "We have already destroyed around 50 per cent of the rockets and missiles that Hezbollah had," General Alon Friedman told army radio.
The Israeli action had "disrupted Hezbollah but there's not much more they can do with an extensive campaign", a British official said. "We are concerned that continued military operations by Israel will cause further damage to infrastructure and loss of civilian life which the damage to Hezbollah will not justify."
But the need for Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, to appear tough at home might tempt him to continue even when the military value was slight, officials suggested.
The Bush Administration, by contrast, has given Israel a green light to continue its attempt to crush Hezbollah.
Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, is now expected to visit the region on Sunday in a sign of greater US engagement, that will be welcomed by European governments. Today, at the UN Security Council in New York, Britain will push for a set of "guidelines for the next phase" which go further than the G8 summit managed last week. "We do need a plan, partly to give Israel a reason to stop its military action," the official said. Britain and the US also want to show Iran, Hezbollah's backers, that it cannot ignite such conflicts.
But the meeting will expose differences within the council - and between Britain and the US. There are deep disagreements about how to respond to the crisis, which began nine days ago with Hezbollah's kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.
The heart of the British plan is the proposal, promoted by Tony Blair at the G8 summit, for an international force in southern Lebanon to allow Lebanese security forces to regain control from Hezbollah. The US has been sceptical of the idea. Britain has also been anxious about the lack of urgency shown by the US, reflected in the nine days that it has taken to assemble the Council.
On Tuesday, Dr Rice said that there should be a ceasefire "as soon as possible when conditions are conducive to do so", words widely interpreted as licence for Israel to continue.
France, which backs the notion of an international force, also wants the Council to call for a ceasefire, a demand on Israel which the US and Britain are unlikely to accept.
The first sign of British frustration at the US position came during the summit when, in an unguarded conversation with Mr Bush, Mr Blair revealed his anxiety about the need for urgent intervention. The Prime Minister suggested that he could visit the region immediately if a trip by Dr Rice took too long to arrange.
However, in the Commons yesterday, Mr Blair backed Israel's right to defend itself, provided that it "does its best to minimise civilian casualties", a position matching that of the US. This conflict "started with the kidnap of Israeli soldiers and the bombardment of northern Israel", he told Sir Menzies Campbell when challenged to say whether it was US policy to tolerate further Israeli military action. Mr Blair mocked Sir Menzies for saying that Britain should call for an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire". Hezbollah had sent " in the region of 1,600 rockets into northern Israel", and while that continued, a "proportionate" response was justified.
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State Dept.: No Free Evacuations for Dead Americans, Either
By Paul Kiel - July 18, 2006, 2:55 PM
Alive or dead, Uncle Sam doesn't give any free rides.
Earlier I noted that the State Department, in stark contrast to the Canadian government, is requiring U.S. citizens caught in Lebanon to pay for the cost of their evacuation. (Rep. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has since weighed in, saying that this was no time "for quibbling over payment for evacuation.")
I called up the State Department to ask about the policy. "We are not standing there with a cash box asking people to pay before they get on the boat," spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus told me. But if they don't pay (by check, no cash or credit cards accepted), or sign a form promising to pay, they don't go. It's the law: "Reasonable commercial air fare" shall be charged to all evacuees.
What if they're dead?
Same deal, she said. No freebies, even if you're not around to enjoy it.
Hironimus said that she didn't know the exact fee being charged. Evacuees are signing promissory notes. Those citizens will find out how much they owe when they get the bill in the mail.
And if a U.S. citizen is killed waiting to evacuate -- or because they stayed behind, unable to promise their government they could pay?
"We arrange with their families," Hironimus said. "We discuss their choices, but it's paid for by the families."
In any case, the spokeswoman assured me, no one would get left behind.
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Still More Israeli Crimes
Israelis against the war
By Rob Winder in Tel Aviv
Thursday 20 July 2006, 7:45 Makka Time, 4:45 GMT
An overwhelming majority of Israelis support their country's assault on Lebanon, opinion polls suggest, but despite the clamour for military action, voices of dissent continue to be heard.
Arab-Israelis, many of whom live in northern areas under threat from Hezbollah rocket attacks, are some of the strongest critics of Israeli airstrikes that have left at least 270 Lebanese dead.
"We are very concerned about what is happening," said Hassan Jabareen of Adalah - a body that campaigns for the legal rights of Arab-Israelis.
"I live in Haifa - but Haifa is a paradise compared to what is happening in Lebanon.
"This government has one policy - no negotiations - and if you have this policy then there is no room for diplomacy."
Discrimination
Arab-Israelis - or Palestinian citizens of Israel - make up 20 per cent of the population yet have long complained of state sanctioned discrimination against their community.
Some Arab-Israelis have said this week, that even while under rocket attack, they have not been given the same access to bomb shelters and information as Jewish Israelis.
Mainstream Jewish Israeli parties such as Ysrael Beytenu regularly call for their mass expulsion from Israel.
Last week, the Knesset passed a law - believed to be aimed at Arab parliamentarians - allowing the expulsion of any "disloyal" member who "supports terror organisations".
And on Wednesday, the Israeli interior minister, Roni Bar-on, described Jamal Zahalkha, an Arab-Israeli parliamentarian, as "a snake born to a snake" after he criticised the government's actions in Lebanon.
"I'd be happy if you would join some of your friends in Lebanon to enjoy what they are enjoying now," he said in comments reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
'Different feelings'
Despite long-running political differences, the Israeli media has largely portrayed the north of the country as being "united under fire".
"Our lives and our hearts are in Beirut and Gaza - not in Haifa"
Ameer Makhoul, director of Ittijah, a coalition of Arab organisations based in Haifa, disagrees.
"We have been taking extra care because of the bombs but we have a very different feelings to that of Jewish Israelis," he said.
"We are part of the Palestinian nation effort and are to trying to raise our voice to tell people what is happening in Lebanon.
"Our lives and our hearts are in Beirut and Gaza - not in Haifa."
Jewish protest
A small number of Jewish Israelis who are against military action in Lebanon are also struggling to make their voices heard.
On Sunday, about 500 people joined an anti-war protest through central Tel Aviv and more demonstrations are set to take place next week.
In the 1930s and 40s, Uri Avery was a member of the Irgun, a militant Jewish group that carried out attacks on British forces in its campaign to found the state of Israel.
Now Avery, also a former Israeli commando, is a peace activist who is a leading a member of Gush Shalom, a group that campaigns for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
"We want to explain to Israelis what is wrong about the operation in Lebanon," Avery said.
"This whole crisis is rooted in the Palestinian problem. Hezbollah would not have made these attacks if Israel was not bombing Gaza."
Avery believes that despite an uphill struggle against Israeli public opinion, groups such as Gush Shalom can have an influence.
"The longer this war goes on, the less it will be supported," he said.
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14 Palestinians killed in Israeli raids
Wednesday 19 July 2006, 22:18 Makka Time, 19:18 GMT
Israeli troops have killed at least 14 Palestinians and injured dozens of people, including an Aljazeera technician, in the occupied Palestinian territories.
An Israeli military spokesman said troops on an arrest raid had opened fire at fighters in the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday.
Aljazeera's correspondent in Nablus said a group of Palestinians threw stones at Israeli forces, who responded with rubber bullets.
Wail Tannus, an Aljazeera broadcast technician, was shot in the legs. He was transferred to a hospital and is in a stable condition, the correspondent said.
Palestinian witnesses said troops backed by armoured vehicles had surrounded a compound in Nablus where fighters were hiding.
Medics said three were killed in the shootout. They were members of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of the Fatah movement headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.
Two more Palestinians were killed later on Wednesday as the Nablus operation continued.
Witnesses and security officials said army bulldozers demolished a prison, and at least seven other buildings housing offices of different security branches, including military intelligence and national security forces.
Gaza attack
Israeli troops also raided the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday as part of a three-week-old offensive to get back a captured soldier there.
Heavy shooting broke out around the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza strip as Israeli troops and tanks crossed the border into the territory before dawn.
Fighting broke out and five fighters were killed, Palestinians said. Another was killed in an air strike on the camp, hospital officials said.
Late on Wednesday, violence continued in the camp as aircraft opened fire on a group of 20 gunmen, the army said. One person was killed 20 others were injured, hospital officials said.
A second air strike on another group wounded five people, two critically, hospital officials said.
An Israeli army spokesman said five Israeli soldiers were wounded, two seriously.
More than 70 Palestinians were reportedly wounded in the raid.
The camp, with 22,000 residents, is near the Gaza-Israel fence and across from the Palestinian town of Dir al-Balah.
Israel began a large-scale operation in Gaza on June 28 three days after Hamas-linked fighters tunnelled under the border and attacked an Israeli army base at a Gaza crossing, killing two soldiers and capturing a third.
About 100 Palestinians, almost half of them civilians, have been killed by Israel since.
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Abbas waiting for Israel to do his dirty work
BY BRIDGET JOHNSON, Columnist
07/19/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT
THE conflict escalation with Israel may be the best thing that could happen to Mahmoud Abbas.
In fact, the Palestinian president could be crossing his fingers, fervently hoping that Israel will do his dirty work for him - and overthrow Hamas.
Israel reacted swiftly against Hamas for the June 25 kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, arresting dozens of legislators and cabinet members and striking Hamas member Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's office. Airstrikes last week also targeted a meeting of Hamas leaders.
"(Hamas') leaders are perfectly aware that if the Israeli operation persists for long enough, it is capable of grinding their movement down to the point that will take years to recover," stated DEBKAfile, reporting on a "shadow war" being fought by Israeli special operations troops against Hamas.
This would seem to hardly upset Abbas, as recent history between Abbas and Hamas has been particularly heated. Aside from the fact that Fatah and Hamas were engaging in vicious street shootouts before digging in for an Israeli offensive gave them something else to do with their days, there's the question of assassination.
Back in May, Abbas called off a Gaza Strip visit after being warned that Hamas' military wing would try to kill him, reported the UK's Sunday Times. Later in the month, Al-Jazeera reported that Palestinian security officials discovered a tunnel dug under Abbas' Gaza house; it was interpreted by Fatah as an assassination attempt orchestrated by Hamas.
If Abbas dies, under law the speaker of the Hamas-led parliament would assume the presidency. Speaker Abdel Aziz Duaik is reportedly moving around day and night in case of another round of arrests by Israelis. But as long as Hamas is in power and locked in a power struggle with Abbas, they will have a successor to move into place should something happen to the Palestinian president.
Days before the attack on the Kerem Shalom border outpost in which Shalit was taken, rival Palestinian factions were up in arms about Abbas' call for a referendum on a two-state solution, which he had previously offered to Hamas with a referendum ultimatum.
On June 30, with dozens of Hamas lawmakers behind bars, Haniyeh claimed - with fuzzy details - that a compromise had been reached on Abbas' plan and the referendum would be called off. This should be regarded with suspicion - especially regarding any recognition of Israel - and an eye for ulterior motives: Hamas, after all, stands for the Islamic Resistance Movement, not the Islamic Cooperation Movement.
Abbas is riding a wave of being perceived as statesman as opposed to terrorist. Bypassing the financially quarantined Hamas, the Arab League transferred $50 million to Abbas on July 3, with another $50 million following from Saudi Arabia. The cash reportedly came with the condition that Abbas will oversee its distribution.
Abbas was also lying low during the escalation of the Gaza conflict. When he did call for a halt to rocket attacks on Israel and for Shalit's release, Hamas fired back with a statement condemning Abbas for "ignoring daily Israeli massacres and trying to show the crisis results from the rockets that the resistance fires."
Before the Shalit hostage drama renewed their focus on fighting Israel, Palestinian factions were creeping toward civil war. Now the factions are presenting a unified front to battle Israel, but things can hardly go from bloody to rosy in the wink of an incursion. Every negotiation attempt, every provocation shows that the chasm between Abbas and Hamas is not only still there, but widening under international pressure and cross-border strife.
"Abbas is different from Arafat in that he is not pushing terror," former Prime Minister and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told WorldNetDaily in June 2005. "He would like to stop terror for utilitarian reasons, because terror is threatening him. But Abbas doesn't differ from Arafat on the ultimate goal, just the tactics to get him there."
Abbas could hardly unite the Palestinians behind his agenda - and risks losing that statesman image among his international sympathizers - if Fatah squads forcibly took Hamas out of power.
And surely the president realizes that Israel can aid him toward his goals by helping wipe out his pesky power struggle. He can shift blame on them later.
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Israeli troops kill Palestinian in Gaza raid
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
July 20, 2006 - 11:05 AM
GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed two Palestinians and wounded eight on Thursday as part of a Gaza offensive to try to free a captured soldier and stop rocket attacks on the Jewish state, local witnesses and the army said.
An air strike killed one militant as he was preparing to launch an anti-tank rocket at Israeli troops in the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, an army spokesman said.
Israeli troops, who have been operating in the camp since Wednesday, earlier shot dead another Palestinian gunman.
Israeli naval boats kept up the pressure, shelling a key coastal road used by emergency vehicles and others. One ambulance was damaged in the barrage, medics said.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive last month after Palestinian militants abducted Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid.
Israel has killed at least 110 Palestinians, around half of them militants, since the start of the operation. On Wednesday alone, Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
One of the militant groups involved in the raid that seized Shalit said the Israeli campaign was a failure.
"The soldier is still missing... And the rockets are continuing to strike. They (Israel) will pay a dear price for killing our civilians and fighters," said Abu Mujahed, a Popular Resistance Committees spokesman.
Israel has also launched an offensive in Lebanon after Hizbollah guerrillas captured two soldiers and killed eight more in a cross-border raid on July 12.
The fighting in the north has killed around 300 people in Lebanon and 29 in Israel.
Israel has been sharply criticised by the United Nations and European leaders for the growing civilian death toll.
On Thursday, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets warning residents of Gaza to steer clear of buildings housing militants or their equipment.
"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will strike and destroy every position or building where there are militants, ammunition and military equipment," the leaflet said.
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Iranians stage anti-Israel rally
Tuesday, 18 July 2006, 11:38 GMT 12:38 UK
Many thousands of Iranians have gathered in central Tehran square for a rally against Israel and in support of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Iranian parliamentary speaker addressed the crowds, warning Israel that no part of its territory is safe.
Protesters waved Hezbollah flags and carried posters of its leader and shouted "death to Israel".
Iran backs Hezbollah, which seized two Israeli soldiers last week sparking Israeli air strikes across Lebanon.
Hezbollah has responded to the Israeli offensive by firing rockets into Israeli towns from Lebanon's southern border.
'Filthy tumour'
Iranian speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said Israel should "flee occupied Palestine".
"The Americans should know that as long as this filthy tumour lies in the body of the Islamic world, Muslims will not stop hating America," he said.
Gholam Ali Haddad Ade told Israel to "flee Palestine"
Mr Haddad Adel said Israeli towns were within range of "the brave children of Lebanon".
He also called on Muslims whose governments had criticised Hezbollah to rise up against their leaders - a reference to many Gulf states, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The crowds pelted a star of David symbol with stones and tomatoes. President George Bush was portrayed in posters as Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and the devil.
Cautious approach
Israel has accused Iran of providing missiles to Hezbollah, although Iran denies this.
The BBC's Iranian analyst Sadeq Saba says the fighting in Lebanon is benefiting Tehran by distracting international attention from its controversial nuclear programme.
But our correspondent says the Iranian government has adopted a cautious approach and most analysts say the country does not want to enter the crisis directly, unless Israel attacks Syria or Iran itself.
More than 200 Lebanese citizens have been killed since Israel launched air strikes last Wednesday following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by militant group Hezbollah.
Twenty-four Israelis have died in the violence - 12 as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
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Were plans for a Middle East war escalation exposed in Bush-Blair exchange?
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
Jul 19, 2006, 00:56
A microphone unintentionally left open at Monday's G-8 summit luncheon picked up snippets of unguarded talk between George Bush and Tony Blair. While most media coverage focused on the embarrassing, stupid and profanity-laced portions of the comments uttered by Bush, a closer examination of the transcript confirms the targeting of Syria and Syrian president Bashar Assad.
It also suggests that severe Anglo-American pressure, via the UN, will continue to be applied to Syria and Iran, both of which have been broad-brushed as the "terror masterminds behind Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists."
More than an idiot's profanity
The worldwide media, Bush's damage control apparatus, have spun the Bush-Blair exchange in the most deceptive Bush-friendly manner. The New York Times spun it as a "blunt call for diplomacy," while another New York Times piece refers to "wise-guy Bush's blunt and coarse chit-chat." Other headlines hailed the performance as "straight-talking Dubya," Bush "lets fly," "curses Hezbollah actions," "Bush urges Assad to end fighting," etc. All false.
First, Bush demonstrated what seasoned observers already know: Bush is a grotesque simpleton suffering from some mental afflication, who is also a ruthless intimidator wielding violence and power without intellect, and without regard. In short, a gangster. Gangsters do not need a great intellect to successfully conduct criminal activities, or head criminal empires. (In fact, intellect gets in the way.) Bush (and Cheney) routinely speaks using profanity.
More importantly, the Bush-Blair exchange was not a "call for peace." They were caught talking in practical and casual fashion about covert back doordeals, and geostrategic plans that are either in the works, or in process.
The precise nature of their plan is hard to ascertain, but what can be interpreted should be cause for alarm. The key passages, from the complete transcript from the Washington Post [my comments in italics-LC]:
Bush: What about Kofi? That seems odd. I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically ceasefire and [then] everything else happens. You know what I'm saying?
Bush finds it "odd," and "doesn't like" how UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has apparently put ceasefire ahead of "everything else." What is this "everything else" that will "happen"? Conditions for ceasefire? Or a new attack by some party or another? Has this "everything else" already been put into place? What are the US, UK, Israel and the UN really up to? Bush is not liking the choreographed order, of some future event. What is the event?
Blair: Yeah. No, I think -- the thing that's really difficult is we can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed. Now, I know what you guys have talked about but it's the same thing.
What are they seeking to "stop" with "international presence"? Does "stop" refer to ending the current violence, or "stopping" as in a multinational conquest (of Syria, Iran or both)? What have they "talked about"? Does the international "presence" refer to diplomatic talks, or military forces? If it applies to military force, are they talking about a peacekeeping force in Lebanon, or a new multinational operation that has been "agreed" upon?
Blair: . . . see how reliable that is. But you need that done quickly.
What is "reliable"? What needs to be done quickly?
Bush: Yeah, she's going. I think Condi's going to go pretty soon.
Condi is going to do what? Given the known Bush administration position, she is not going to negotiate a ceasefire that offers anything whatsoever to Hamas and Hezbollah "terrorists," nor will she make overtures towards what she and the Bush administration have insisted are their masters, Syria and Iran. What back doordeal is Rice cooking up?
Blair: Right. Well, that's, that's, that's all that matters. If you -- see, it'll take some time to get out there. But at least it gives people a -
What "people"? Is he referring to political players, who need time to negotiate something, or is he talking about creating the propaganda illusion of diplomacy for the benefit of the masses ("people")? If it is the latter, it would be a political cover for what?
Bush: A process, I agree. I told her your offer too.
Should this be read at face value as "diplomatic process," or a process towards something else? Is he talking about a real or fake (propaganda) process? More importantly here, some sort of "offer" has been made between Blair and the US, and Rice is aware of it. What is it?
Blair: Well, it's only if it's -- I mean, you know, if she's gotta -- or if she needs the ground prepared, as it were. Obviously, if she goes out, she's got to succeed, as it were, whereas I can just go out and talk.
She (Rice) needs the ground prepared to "succeed" doing what? "Whereas I can just go out and talk" suggests that Blair intends for him and the UK to take a back seat, and let the US and Rice lead the way -- towards what? Peace, or more war? A ceasefire, or an opportunistic maneuver of some kind?
Bush: See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over.
This is a key passage. What is "ironic"? Is the irony that they must ask for Syrian cooperation -- or is it ironic that they are setting up Syria to take the blame (for "Hezbollah's shit")? What is "over" -- the current violence, or any remaining obstacle to a full-blown Middle East war?
Blair : Who, Syria?
Bush: Right.
Blair: I think this is all part of the same thing. What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he's [inaudible ] . That's what this whole thing's about. It's the same with Iran.
The inaudible word is critical. Without the word, the passage is hard to interpret. Blair seems to be characterizing Syrian president Bashar Assad as somewhat naive (a "solution in Israel and Palestine," and happy endings in Iraq, as well as Iran are far fetched), as well as a dupe who is willing to play along with Anglo-American and Israeli plans.
Note: some media reports, including the San Francisco Chronicle, have the last line of this passage as "It's the same with Iraq." An error, or an intentional lie?
Bush: I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We're not blaming Israel. We're not blaming the Lebanese government."
What does Bush want the UN to "make happen"?
Is Bush talking about an Anglo-American diplomatic stance (don't blame Israel or Lebanon) towards a ceasefire, or he is talking about the creation of a political cover by which a larger "anti-terror" war targeting Hamas and Hezbollah, and their alleged masterminds in Syria and Iran, will be conducted?
Is Assad complicit, or is he being set up?
Apocalypse ahead
As noted by William Arkin, in his Washington Post analysis of the Bush-Blair exchange, "Early Warning":
"As I've been watching the latest Middle East saga unfold, I've been struck by the almost universal insights being offered by pundits and talking heads that Iran or Syria planned the Hamas and Hezbollah kidnappings of Israeli soldiers and also control what happens now.
"In this narrative, Iran is trying to divert attention from its nuclear weapons program; Syria is seeking revenge against American isolation and seeking to enlarge its power base. The two countries provide missiles and supply lines and sanctuary for Hezbollah and Hamas. Iranian 'soldiers' are even secretly in Lebanon, aiding Hezbollah in its Friday attack on the Israeli naval vessel, an attack that Hezbollah could not have otherwise mounted.
"In this telling, Hamas and Hezbollah are reduced to almost unimportant terrorist dupes of Iran and Syria, Lebanon is just a poor victimized country, and Israel is only defending itself. The United States and the international community are also absolved of any responsibility for their failures of diplomacy because what is unfolding is part of a grand conspiracy that no amount of intervention could have an impact on.
"In this version of history, Iran and Syria can also just snap their fingers and 'stop' the fighting. Even if this is a false characterization, their failure to do so confirms that the Bush administration's approach towards them is the only option. The two are thus confirmed as rogue nations and new axis of evil."
"In this world, various leaders and factions plot their next moves, plan covert operations, undertake assassinations, decide on who to support and how based upon inside information.
"The danger of this type of intelligence, and of leaders obsessed with gossip and the lurid details of world events, is that pretty soon the geopolitical double dealing crowds out any true picture and any sense of State responsibility."
With all due respect, there is not simply "double dealing." There is also blackmail and extortion, with violent military ramifications. Outright thuggery is the basis of much imperial geostrategy.
It remains to be seen what Bush, Blair, and the brutal Israeli government have in store. The gates of hell have already been opened. Only the naïve would think they have any desire to close them.
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Israel: Spain relations hurt by PM's accusation IDF uses 'abuses force'
Reuters
15:52 20/07/2006
Israel's envoy to Spain said on Thursday the two countries' relations had been damaged after the Spanish prime minister accused Israel of using "abusive force" during an event at which he also wore a Palestinian scarf.
Spain's ability to use its influence to help defuse the growing Middle East conflict could suffer following the speech by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to a meeting of young Socialists on Wednesday, Ambassador Victor Harel said.
His comments came as European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, himself a Spaniard, was involved in talks aimed at ending fighting between Israel, Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militants.
"Each declaration which is not balanced has consequences for parties who want to use their influence," Harel told reporters at Madrid's Ritz Hotel where he listened to Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos at a conference.
Relations with Spain "are not in their best moment", he said.
Zapatero, who took power in a surprise election victory following Islamist train bombings in Madrid in 2004 and immediately pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq, had told the young Socialists: "No one should defend themselves with abusive force which does not protect innocent human beings."
Spain wants the United Nations Security Council to agree to deploy international troops to stop fighting which has claimed hundreds of lives since Israel launched bombardments nine days ago to stop Hizbollah attacking it with rockets.
Moratinos, who was once the EU's Middle East peace envoy, angrily denied an accusation at the conference by a former Spanish Jewish community leader that Zapatero's remarks were anti-Semitic.
During the question-and-answer session at the breakfast, Mauricio Hatchwell, a member of Spain's small Jewish community, accused Zapatero of being antisemitic.
Moratinos reacted sternly, saying one could be a loyal ally of Israel and still criticize it without being antisemitic. He addressed Hatchwell personally and told him not to repeat such criticism of the government.
"Let this be the last time you publicly denounce and condemn and express yourself saying a Spanish government is antisemitic," Moratinos said.
He said he was not worried by the diplomatic effect of photographs in Spanish newspapers on Thursday of a grinning Zapatero wearing a black-and-white Palestinian scarf passed to him by a student at Wednesday's meeting.
"I imagine that when Prime Minister Zapatero goes to the Wailing Wall, he'll put on a kippah," said Moratinos, referring to a traditional Jewish skull cap and Jerusalem's Western Wall.
Comment: Zapatero said, "No one should defend themselves with abusive force which does not protect innocent human beings." How on earth could that be seen as anti-Semitic?!
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Our Poor Planet
Earthquake hits Indonesia's capital
UPDATED: 08:23, July 20, 2006
A strong earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale rocked Indonesia's capital city Jakarta and surroundings at 17:55 local time Wednesday.
The quake, which also hit Bogor and Tangerang, south of Jakarta, and felt in Bandung, capital of West Java province, caused tall buildings to sway and many citizens to run out of houses, witnesses said.
The quake was centered 40 kilometers beneath the Sunda straits, said Budi Waluyo, an official at Indonesia's meteorological office.
It struck 190 kilometers southwest of Jakarta, he said.
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Earth facing 'catastrophic' loss of species
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday July 20, 2006
The Guardian
The Earth is on the brink of "major biodiversity crisis" fuelled by the steady destruction of ecosystems, a group of the world's most distinguished scientists and policy experts warn today.
Nineteen leading specialists in the field of biodiversity, including Robert Watson, chief scientist at the World Bank, and Professor Georgina Mace, director of the Institute of Zoology, are calling for the urgent creation of a global body of scientists to offer advice and urge governments to halt what they call a potentially "catastrophic loss of species".
Destruction of natural habitats and the effects of climate change are causing species to die out at 100 to 1,000 times faster than the natural rate, leading some scientists to warn we are facing the next mass extinction.
Nearly one-quarter of the world's mammals, one-third of amphibians and more than one-tenth of bird species are threatened with extinction. Climate change alone is expected to force a further 15%- 37% of species to the brink of extinction within the next 50 years.
Writing in the journal Nature today, the experts from 13 nations urge for the new body, the international mechanism of scientific expertise on biodiversity (Imoseb), to be set up to force better biodiversity policies around the world.
"We are on the verge of a major biodiversity crisis. Virtually all aspects of diversity are in steep decline and a large number of populations and species are likely to become extinct this century. Despite this evidence, biodiversity is still consistently undervalued and given inadequate weight in both private and public decisions," the authors say.
The new body will be modelled loosely on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a collection of the world's top climate scientists that is convened to assess the latest research on climate change and its potential implications. Because the IPCC is funded by governments, it carries sufficient clout to influence international and regional policy.
Dr Watson, a former chairman of the IPCC, said the Imoseb may face a tougher task than the IPCC because biodiversity is often more complex than climate change. An 18-month consultation is under way to agree how the body will accumulate scientific evidence, identify causes of damage and recommend ways to limit or reverse them.
In May, the World Conservation Union said the number of known threatened species stood at 16,119. Polar bears, desert gazelles and sharks were all added to the list of species facing extinction. Melting ice caps, hunting and over-fishing were identified as the culprits.
"Whether it's forests, marine systems, grasslands, you name it, they are in disrepair," said Dr Watson. "For the sake of the planet, the biodiversity science community has to create a way to get organised, to coordinate its work across disciplines, and together with one clear voice advise governments on steps to halt the potentially catastrophic loss of species already occurring."
In danger
- Great white shark populations have decreased by up to 95% in the past 50 years
- Polar bears are expected to suffer a population decline of 30% in the next 45 years
- Unregulated hunting and habitat degradation in the Sahara desert have caused an 80% drop in the dama gazelle population
- A quarter of freshwater fish in Africa is threatened by human activity
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St. Louis Storms cut power, snap trees, topple trucks across region
St. Louis Dispatch
07/19/2006
A powerful summer storm slammed into the St. Louis area Wednesday evening, toppling buildings, street lights, tractor trailers and hundreds of trees.
At least 476,000 customers lost power, Metrolink was shut down and just one-third of flights were getting in and out of Lambert Field.
"This is one of the worst storms we can all remember to hit the city of St. Louis in recent years," St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said at a hurriedly called news conference.
The power outages will present a challenge to utility crews trying to get the power back on in temperatures expected to exceed 100 degrees today.
Until Wednesday, the two biggest storms to hit the area in the last few years were in July 2004, when about 225,000 lost power, and in August 2005, which affected about 250,000. It took AmerenUE crews four days to restore power to all customers in 2004 and five days in 2005.
The storm brewed quickly in central Illinois and swept southwest toward the St. Louis area shortly after 7 p.m. Meteorologists said the storm was unusual, not because of its path, but because a powerful "gust front" preceded the rain and thunder, causing damage from St. Charles County in the west to Madison County in the east, but hitting St. Louis and St. Louis County hardest.
Skies darkened with blowing dust, shingles flew from roofs, and windows were shattered, all before a drop of rain fell. Blowing dust and debris and then torrents of rain limited visibility on roads.
Westbound lanes of Highway 370 were shut down at the Discovery Bridge across the Missouri River because of at least two overturned tractor-trailers, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol. In downtown St. Louis, part of the Switzer building near the Eads Bridge collapsed onto the bridge, trapping a driver - eight months pregnant - in her car for some time.
Near Lambert Field, strong winds ripped off part of the terminal roof and dumped it across several lanes of Interstate 70. Power was out to all but the East Terminal. The airport was open to some flights but with heavy delays.
Drivers heading east on I-70 near the airport could see camper shells strewn across the highway, twisted sheet metal wrapped around light posts and at least one burning building east of the airport.
The eastbound lanes of Interstate 270 near the Chain of Rocks Bridge were closed as emergency crews responded to three tractor-trailers that had flipped over, authorities said.
St. Mary's Health Center in Richmond Heights and Forest Park Hospital in St. Louis were operating on backup power systems Wednesday night.
In St. Louis
Windows in the old Dillards building at 7th Street and Washington Avenue in St. Louis were shattered, covering the streets with a layer of glass. At the Millennium Hotel, a window at Top of the River, the revolving restaurant at the top of the building, was blown out while guests dined.
No one was seriously injured, said Mark Diaz, the hotel's assistant general manager - "just minor, minor cuts."
Winds also shattered a skylight in the south tower, Diaz said. "We are just going to board everything up and get the repair crews out here tomorrow," he said.
At America's Center, bus driver Gaylon Parker, 60, stood huddled at a corner outdoors, watching the storm rip up part of the center's sign.
"This thing was fantastic," he said. "I never saw anything like it my life ... The buses were blowing back and forth."
Parker said he stayed outside during most of the storm to be "adventurous."
"We did finally go inside," he said.
At the Missouri Botanical Garden, hundreds of people who had been attending the Whitaker Music Festival free concert were moved to shelters at the Schoenfeld Auditorium. Damage from shattered glass was reported to the Linnean House, one of the nation's oldest continuously operating greenhouse conservatories. Trees were reported down at the Garden and in neighborhoods around it.
In parts of south St. Louis, trees and limbs almost covered the pavement for whole blocks south of Meramec Street. South of Interstate 55 and in the area around Carondelet Park, motorists had to weave around limbs and thick mats of branches.
Witnesses reported a driver trapped inside a car at Morganford and Arsenal streets. A building collapse at Sidney Street and Lemp Avenue injured two people inside. An empty building near Natural Bridge and Harris avenues also collapsed.
St. Louis officials urged residents to stay within their homes if possible as crews worked to clean up streets. Residents may report downed lines by calling 314-231-1212.
In St. Louis County
In Bellefontaine Neighbors, 100-year-old trees were thrown down, said resident Stephanie Russell, an employee at St. Louis University.
"We had to use four-wheel-drive low just to get up the street," Russell said. "It was everything from water to debris to branches 5 feet to 20 feet long."
Russell said she eventually got to her driveway, but a fallen branch blocked her progress and then another fell behind her car.
"We can't get in or out," she said as neighbors worked to remove branches from the road. "... I've never seen anything like it."
Power went out during the Bridgeton City Council meeting, but the council continued its deliberations. By 8:30, the storm had left the North County area.
In north St. Louis County, the storm caused a gas leak in the 10000 block of Lord Drive. Authorities were evacuating the block, according to St. Louis County police.
Chairmaine Manse and Anna Hollins, customers at the St. Louis Bread Co. at Manchester and Interstate 270 were taken by surprise by the storm.
"It came up as a strong wind, knocking over umbrellas and tables," said Hollins, who lives in Normandy. "It got dark and all hell broke loose . . . I'm willing to go, but I'm not willing to chance it."
In Ladue, Elfriede Olney said at least two oak trees - one about 3 feet in diameter and one more than 50 feet tall - fell in her front yard.
"It's a total disaster area in the front," Olney said. "The driveways are blocked. I've never seen anything like this."
The Dierbergs store in Warson Woods stayed open by generator power and was doing a brisk business in batteries and ice.
In University City, William Conner, was outside late Wednesday night cleaning tree branches and other debris from his driveway. Storms have knocked out power in neighborhood at least a dozen times this year, he said.
"Here we go again," he said. "I hope I don't have to spend another night in the dark."
Kathleen Jensen, a dispatcher for Creve Coeur police, left her home in St. Clair in Franklin County about 8:45 p.m. to drive into St. Louis County to work. Trees were down and lights were out the entire way, but she was especially impressed with the number of road signs that were knocked over.
"We're talkin' the big, huge, green signs that are at the sides of the roads," she said.
In Normandy, neighbors were avoiding downed wires as they worked to clear roads and yards of debris.
The Hazelwood City Council met Wednesday night even though most of the city - including city hall - was without electricity.
"We have a power-point presentation, but no power," Mayor T.R. Carr quipped at one point. Members of the Hazelwood Police Explorer Post who had been meeting at city hall when the storm hit helped get a portable generator working in the council chamber so the meeting could go on.
In other areas
In St. Charles County, tree limbs were down, power was out and the River City Rascals baseball game was canceled.
In Metro East, there were widespread power outages in Fairview Heights. In Glen Carbon, the storm hit quickly about 7 p.m. and moved on without major damage.
In Arnold, Tom and Tana Harris of the 2800 block of Fannie Drive were home with their sons, Levi and Larry, and Larry's girlfriend, Angela Clark, when a tree crashed through the ceiling and the house collapsed. Levi, 5, was trapped.
"The beams fell on him and all I could see were his little feet," his mother said.
Levi was soon rescued and Angela Clark was taken to a hospital with a broken ankle.
In De Soto, the storm caused the collapse of the Spiedel Muffler building.
Shedding some light
At Mike Duffy's Pub & Grill in Kirkwood, manager Marty Smith said the patrons remained calm when the storm hit. But then a concrete street lamp came crashing down onto the driver's side of a red Dodge Caravan parked on West Jefferson.
Smith went from table to table seeking the owner of the car.
"As I approached her, she said, 'I have a red Caravan. Are my lights on?'" Smith recalled. "I said, 'There's a light - on it.'"
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Fires Rage In Indonesian Borneo And Sumatra
by Staff Writers
Jakarta (AFP) Jul 19, 2006
More than 1,500 firefighters are battling scores of forest fires raging on Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra island as a haze envelops neighboring Malaysia and Thailand, forestry officials said Wednesday.
Satellite images showed some 567 "hot spots" from fires and underground heat centres in Riau province on Sumatra as well as Kalimantan in Borneo, a spokesman from Indonesia's forestry ministry Masyud told AFP.
He said not all the spots were necessarily still burning as many would have been extinguished already.
Riau province on Sumatra island had the highest number of hot spots with 359, he told AFP.
As many as 1,560 local firefighters were battling the fires armed with backpack water pumps, shovels and rakes, said Haryanto Wahyu Sukotyo, another forestry minister official.
He said most appeared to have been started to clear land in commercial timber or palm oil plantations.
"Most are in plantations, mostly it is palm oil, but we don't know for sure because we haven't investigated. But it is probably for land clearing," said Sukotyo.
Five provinces in Thailand, including the holiday isle of Phuket, have been hit by haze from the fires as has neighbouring Malaysia.
Air quality in the Thai province of Songkhla, 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Bangkok, fell to potentially hazardous levels Tuesday morning, when visibility was reduced to two kilometers in the province.
In Malaysia parts of the northern resort island of Penang, and Perak, Selangor and Kedah states were suffering poor visibility Wednesday from smoke particles being blown from Sumatra.
On Tuesday air quality in parts of Malaysia, including the major shipping centre of Port Klang west of the capital, plunged to unhealthy levels.
In May Indonesia's agriculture minister pledged to enforce a 2004 law. It imposes a maximum 10-year jail term and 10 billion rupiah (1.1 million dollars) in fines on plantations that defy regulations against using fire to clear land.
Haze caused by burning in Indonesia and some parts of Malaysia to make way for crops causes an annual haze that afflicts countries in the region including Singapore and Thailand.
The worst-ever bout in 1997 and 1998 cost the region an estimated 9.0 billion dollars in damage by disrupting air travel and other business.
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Avian Flu Numbers Increase Across SE Asia
by Kate Walker
Le Bugue, France (UPI) Jul 20, 2006
Thai authorities have announced two suspected cases of avian-influenza infection in a pair of sisters hospitalized earlier this week, local media has reported.
The sisters, from the northern province of Phichit, were hospitalized after displaying symptoms similar to those seen in bird-flu sufferers, local health authorities told the Thai media.
Local test results from the two sisters, who are 3 and 4 years old, are expected to be returned Thursday, before which time no firm diagnosis can be made. Once the local test results have been returned, however, they must be confirmed by an official World Health Organization laboratory before an official statement regarding new human cases can be made.
The girls were initially sent to Ta Pan Hin District Hospital after developing flu-like symptoms, including respiratory difficulties above those associated with seasonal influenza, shortly after a number of local birds died of unknown causes. They were then moved to Phichit Provincial Hospital for additional care, where they have been placed under quarantine and their symptoms monitored for signs of deterioration.
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Also in Thailand, health authorities across the country are preparing themselves for a possible resurgence in avian-influenza infections as a result of the imminent monsoon season.
The health authorities have placed three provinces -- western Suphan Buri and Kanchanaburi, and Nakhon Pathom, near Bangkok -- on special alert, as all have suffered outbreaks within the past two years. The northern provinces of Uttaradit, Sukhothai, Phitsanulok and Phichit have also been designated as worthy of special monitoring.
It has been more than six months since Thailand saw a human death from avian influenza, and prior to the current suspected infections in Phichit it was believed the Southeast Asian country's bird-flu surveillance program was one of the most effective in the region.
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Azerbaijan is bracing itself for a fall resurgence in avian-influenza outbreaks, ever mindful of its position on the migratory flight paths that many believe place it at greater risk of increased poultry infections.
Having earlier seen human cases of H5N1 infection and a number of deaths from the disease, the country, with the assistance of the WHO, is increasing its efforts to stem the spread of the virus by better educating its healthcare workers.
The WHO office in Azerbaijan is preparing a range of recommendations for better health and hygiene practices designed to stem the spread of many communicable diseases -- with a particular view to avian influenza -- which will be distributed, free of charge, to healthcare workers across the country.
Hungarian poultry farmers have been pressing the government to compensate them for birds lost in the battle to halt the spread of avian influenza, which first arrived in the country in early June, affecting farms near Kiskunmajsa in the southern part of the country.
Around 100 farmers gathered in front of the Agriculture Ministry Tuesday demanding increased compensation more in line with their losses, bbj.hu news agency reported on its Web site.
Agriculture Minister József Gráf was presented with a petition by Magosz, the Hungarian farmers' association, requesting that he authorize an official assessment of the impact -- financial and otherwise -- of avian influenza on the Hungarian poultry industry. Once an assessment is complete, Magosz claims, the government will be in a better position to support what bbj.hu called the "ailing poultry industry."
Following the initial bird-flu outbreak approximately 500,000 local birds were culled to prevent the spread of the disease, a necessary measure that nonetheless dealt a sharp blow to the region's poultry farmers.
Compensation offered by the government and matched by the European Union is unlikely to exceed a fraction of the lost income.
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Following the official WHO confirmation of another avian-influenza fatality, the bird-flu death toll in Indonesia has now reached 42.
The most recent death to be confirmed following official testing in a WHO laboratory was that of a 3-year-old girl.
The World Health Organization has now confirmed 132 deaths from avian influenza worldwide since the H5N1 strain of the virus re-emerged and began to affect humans in 2003.
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Europe swelters in continuing heatwave
AFP
July 20, 2006
Vast swathes of Europe have baked in tropical temperatures that have claimed nine lives in France alone, but summer thunderstorms brought some welcome relief.
A 32-year-old man died in Spain after suffering heatstroke while working on a farm in Caceres in the east, local health authorities said on Thursday. He was Spain's third heatwave victim after a builder died in Murcia in the south on Sunday and a 44-year-old man died on Tuesday in Galicia in the northwest.
Sixteen people have died so far across Europe, where thermometers have hovered over the 30 degrees Celsius mark (86 degrees Fahrenheit) for several days, but authorities in France said that measures implemented following the 2003 heatwave had averted another disaster.
More than 35,000 mainly elderly people died across Europe in 2003, including about 15,000 in France, as a result of dehydration and heat stroke.
In recent days, at least nine people have died from heat-related deaths in France. Germany, the Netherlands and Spain have reported two deaths each.
Parisians got welcome relief from the suffocating heat on Thursday as the city opened its annual artifical beach along the banks of the capital's Seine river.
The four-week-long Paris Plage initiative was extended this year with the creation of another beach on the Left Bank and a second swimming pool where residents and tourists could escape the summer heat.
Britain also sweltered with temperatures rivalling many of Europe's traditional summer hotspots such as Rome or Athens.
The thermometer hit 36.3 C just south of London on Wednesday, the hottest July day since 1911 when records began. The all-time record of 38.5 C, set in August 2003, still stands.
Meteorologists in Britain estimated that temperatures had peaked for the week but many counties, particularly in the south, were still expected to swelter in over 30 C. The average temperature in Britain in July is 22 C.
Denmark also recorded exceptionally high temperatures with beaches and parks packed by residents seeking cool water or shade.
The heatwave has been a boon for many Danish businesses as ice-cream sales have shot up 21 percent, sunglasses by 50 percent and entries to children's swimming pools have increased 25 percent.
But the heat has also brought drought.
Several Polish deputies on Thursday held mass in the parliamentary chapel to pray for rain.
Fires have flared across Europe as baked earth and scorched vegetation have created ideal conditions to fan flames far and wide.
In Portugal, 700 firefighters are battling at least nine separate forest fires across the country in temperatures reaching 41 C.
More than 600 hectares (1,500 acres) of agricultural land was destroyed by blazes in France on Wednesday alone.
In central and northern Croatia, more than 250 hectares of forest and woodland have gone up in smoke over the last two days, local television stations reported.
The head of a French research laboratory said the unusually high temperatures were linked to global warming.
"The rules are changing, there's no doubt about it. This is the start of a process. We can expect heatwaves to be more frequent and more extreme as a result of the general rise in temperatures linked to greenhouse gas emissions," said Herve Le Treut, director of the National Centre for Scientific Research.
Germany said the exceptional heat had increased ozone pollution to potentially harmful levels in parts of the country and only storms could clear the air. "We are at the start of a cycle of ozone pollution," said an official at the federal bureau for the environment.
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Denver choking on near record smog levels
By CHASE SQUIRES
Associated Press
July 20, 2006
DENVER - Colorado is suffering through a summer of smog.
With temperatures topping 100 degrees this month in Denver and elsewhere along the populous Front Range, routine activities like filling up at the gas station or mowing the lawn are releasing fumes into a perfect cauldron for creating ozone, a major component of smog.
Activists are sounding the alarm. Government officials are keeping watch. Nobody's breathing easy.
Denver is on a pace to eclipse the ozone-choked summer of 2003, the worst in 20 years, when the state issued 42 ozone alerts warning of unhealthy air. As of Wednesday, this summer has had 34.
Christopher Dann, a spokesman for the Colorado health department, said it's hard to point to one factor causing this summer's increase.
"There's no magic bullet out there that anyone can see," Dann said. "We're not out there generating ozone in great amounts, we're emitting precursor pollutants that are chemically changed in the atmosphere into ozone .... As long as human beings burn stuff, we're going to have pollution problems."
Ozone is created when the sun bakes common pollutants such as engine exhaust, wildfire smoke and vapors from everything from paint cans to oil and gas wells.
It's a particularly vexing problem for Denver, which vanquished its "brown cloud" in 2002 only to get tagged by the federal government two years later for missing new ozone standards.
While rebounding with acceptable ozone levels in 2004 and last year, this year's spike puts the region in jeopardy of coming under federal restrictions if it can't rein in the problem.
For most people, heavy ozone is only irritating, but for people with respiratory difficulties - such as the more than 250,000 Coloradans with asthma - it can lead to intense breathing problems, said Arthur McFarlane, who works with the state health department's asthma program.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency measures ozone at monitoring stations across the Front Range, using a complicated formula that allows for the effects of unusually hot weather.
If all-day smog ratings at any monitoring station, averaged over a three-year period, exceed the federal limit, the EPA can impose restrictions on the state, including limits on federal highway spending.
This summer, some Denver-area monitoring stations are hovering around the maximum. One near Boulder is at the limit; one south of Littleton and another north of Denver are slightly above. Those high numbers may still come down, averaged with last year's ratings, but it leaves the state on shaky footing if next summer's numbers continue the trend.
A station installed this summer west of Fort Collins has far exceeded the standard. Those readings should "set off alarm bells" about human risk and the need for policy makers to take action, said Vickie Patton, an attorney with Environmental Defense.
"The big picture for the Colorado Front Range is a paradox where you have millions of people who are raising families here because they value clean air," she said.
Denver has until the end of 2007 to show ozone levels are in compliance. Other regions around the country, including Roanoke, Va., Greenville-Spartanburg S.C., Johnson City-Bristol, Tenn., Nashville, Tenn., and Frederick County, Md. are also facing the deadline.
In Denver's case, it is a big job, but achievable, experts say.
State health officials ask people to do little things, such as not spilling gasoline at the pump, waiting to refuel until after dusk, when the vapors have less time to cook into ozone, and trading in old gasoline-powered mowers for newer models.
Clean air advocates say there should also be changes in the growing oil and gas fields north of Denver.
"Oil and gas is kind of the last virtually unregulated source of air pollution in the state," said Jeremy Nichols, a volunteer for Rocky Mountain Clear Air Action.
Greg Schnacke, executive vice president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the industry spent $20 million in Colorado over the past few years to curb escaped gases. Old clunkers on the road are a bigger problem, he said, and forcing any industry to spend millions more on questionable solutions doesn't make sense.
Patton said regardless of the cause or the cures, something must be done.
"Smog pollution problems are no longer confined to urban Denver, but reach far across the Colorado Front Range," she said. "The reality is that we need a comprehensive solution."
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Back in the USSA
Chicago police tortured black suspects in '70s and '80s: report
Last Updated Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:47:02 EDT
The Associated Press
Special prosecutors investigating allegations that Chicago police tortured nearly 150 black suspects in the 1970s and '80s said Wednesday they found evidence of abuse, but any crimes are now too old to prosecute.
"It is our judgment that the evidence in those cases would be sufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," Robert D. Boyle and Edward J. Egan wrote in a long-awaited report.
The four-year investigation focused on allegations that 148 black men were tortured in Chicago police interrogation rooms in the 1970s and '80s. The men claimed detectives under the command of Lt. Jon Burge beat them, used electric shocks, played mock Russian roulette and started to smother at least one to elicit confessions.
No one has ever been charged, but Burge was fired after a police board found he had abused a suspect in custody. His attorney has said Burge never tortured anyone.
The report released Wednesday also faulted procedures followed by the Cook County State's Attorney's office and the police department at the time of the alleged abuse, saying they were "inadequate in some respects" but had since improved.
Mayor Richard M. Daley was the state's attorney during part of the period investigated.
Daley's office did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday. A police spokeswoman also did not immediately return call seeking comment.
Boyle and Egan's report said they found three cases with enough evidence to seek an indictment, including the suspect whose abuse allegations led to Burge's firing.
That suspect, who was convicted of killing two police officers in 1982, claimed Burge and two detectives beat and tortured him with electric shocks.
"Regrettably, we have concluded that the statute of limitations would bar any prosecution of any offenses our investigation has disclosed," the prosecutors said. The statute of limitations on the allegations is three years.
Report could boost legal claims
The special prosecutors also said they believe there was abuse in other cases that they reviewed but that the evidence wasn't as strong.
Allegations had included officers playing mock Russian roulette with suspects with unloaded guns.
"Regrettably, we have concluded that the statute of limitations would bar any prosecution of any offenses our investigation has disclosed," the prosecutors said. The statute of limitations on the allegations is three years.
Several people who claimed to have been abused or tortured by Chicago detectives have filed civil lawsuits and the report could bolster their legal claims.
The allegations also have drawn attention from human rights groups.
In May, a United Nations anti-torture panel said the Chicago investigation needs to go farther than it has. They said the United States should ensure that law enforcement officials who mistreat suspects are punished.
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Blue sky thinking
Thursday July 20, 2006
Paul Harris
Guardian Unlimited
The American work ethic may be admirable enough, but if they took a break every now and then, argues Paul Harris, they might learn a bit about the rest of the world
There is an advert on American television that tells a simple story. The commercial, which is artfully depicted in beautiful pencilled animation, is seeking to promote an airline.
It begins with a young boy gazing in wonder at an jet plane flying high above. The boy then grows up, gets a job and marries. At each juncture in his busy life he looks up wistfully at the blue skies but is too preoccupied to act on his desire. Finally, as a grey-haired old man after his retirement, he again sees a plane in the sky above and finally hops on board, heading off to explore the world.
Now American advertisers are a canny bunch. They know their market. They have judged that this little tale is a heartwarming one. It is of a young boy's dream fulfilled. It will boost that airline's positive image. The story therefore is seen as resonating with Americans in a happy way.
But to European eyes (or at least to mine) this is not a happy story at all. It is heart-breaking tragedy. What is this man thinking? He has dreamed of travelling the world since he was a boy and only gets around to it when he's retired. Is he insane? What was keeping him busy all that time? The answer, of course: work.
There are few greater differences between America and Europe than attitudes to work.
The old saying that Americans live to work while Europeans work to live often rings true. There is a huge work ethic in America built on hard labour and sacrifice, and not too much in the way of leisure time, in which there is much to admire. But also very little to envy.
One brutal statistic sums it up: taken as a whole the average European gets about six weeks a year in holiday. The average American gets only two weeks. In America this difference is often mentioned by columnists and economists in celebratory terms.
They point gleefully to America's superior productivity rates and higher GNP. They see Europe as economically moribund. This is bizarre to the European mind. It's not so much a Transatlantic argument, as two entirely different conversations. Of course, work is good. But it is not all there is.
When did a productivity rate last get you a nice suntan? Given the choice between contributing a bit more to national GNP or spending an extra two weeks in southern Spain, which would you take? A little less work is a good thing.
But I believe that it is time for Americans take a break. Or more precisely several breaks. An extra two weeks holiday for all Americans would do the country a whole lot of good.
Firstly, I am sure a few economic output statistics would dip but not by a huge amount. I met a factory manager on a plane to Washington state once who had spent time in Germany and marvelled at how - despite so much more holiday - the workers there still completed their orders in the same time as their American colleagues.
The answer was simple common sense: if you give someone 48 weeks to do a job and then 4 weeks holiday, the job gets done in 48 weeks. If you give someone 50 weeks to do the same job, and two weeks holiday, then the job takes 50 weeks.
Secondly, at a time of huge American concern about outsourcing jobs abroad, an extra two weeks of holiday for American workers would give a massive boost to America's leisure and service industries. It would be boom time for resorts across America. Perversely, taking a holiday could create jobs.
Thirdly, and finally, it would be good for the rest of the world. America is just too big and too many people live in the wide open spaces in the middle to make going abroad easy. In London if you fly two hours you can probably end up in a dozen different countries. In Ohio, you will barely make it to New York.
With just two weeks holiday to spend (with some days used up letting in the gas man or visiting relatives) it becomes difficult to spend the time and effort to get anywhere outside North America. That leads to an inevitable lack of interest and knowledge about much of the world that can feed into politics. Before he became President, George W Bush had never been to Europe. This not to say Americans wouldn't love to find out more about the rest of us, it is just that on two weeks leave they don't get much of a chance.
This is what leads many Europeans to look in bafflement as Americans visit their shores in frenetic bursts, snapping pictures and ticking off as many countries as they can. Europeans tend to slip into an easy anti-American prejudice when they see this behaviour. But the truth is that if you've flown all the way from Ohio, and only have five days to 'do Europe' on your one holiday that year then of course you are going to try and pack in as much as you can.
So, with an extra two weeks off, Americans could relax. They could travel more often, more widely and much more slowly. They would get to know the world a bit better. The rest of the world would get to know them better too. Everyone would be happier. In troubled times like these how could that be a bad thing?
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Fear and loathing on DC's streets as summer crimewave reaches the elite
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Thursday July 20, 2006
The Guardian
Widening gap between rich and poor blamed for rise in violence, with 14 murders in two weeks
The call comes over the radio just a few minutes after Officer Kristina Cappello's patrol car has crested the National Mall, the white dome of the Capitol gleaming in the darkness as she turns the wheel towards the less touristy streets of Washington DC. A fellow officer needs backup at the scene of an assault.
For Officer Cappello, this is the kind of call that has become pretty much routine during a summer in which there has been a sudden spike in violent street crime after several years of decline. This reached international attention this month when a young Jewish activist from London was murdered as he walked a female friend home.
In an eight-hour shift, Officer Cappello has had calls about an assault, a man shot in the leg on a housing estate, a car slamming into the side of a city bus, a domestic disturbance and a couple of suspected break-ins. "It's the heat," she says.
Last week, Washington's police chief, Charles Ramsey, declared a "crime emergency" after the city registered its 14th murder since July 1, and a spate of violent robberies around Washington's most famous monuments on the Mall. As well as the steep rise in homicides, robberies are up 14% and armed assaults 18%.
When we arrive at the address given out on the radio, the officer who made the call has already got a man in handcuffs and on his knees with his face pressed into the side of a battered blue sedan. It is a sweltering night, but he is wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt. He is babbling: "I'm a man under fire."
Officer Cappello begins searching his pockets and pulls out a knife. Another man sits on a chair in the pool of light cast by a takeaway shop. One hand clutches the right side of his face; the other rests on his white cane.
When the first patrol car pulled up, the man in the grey sweatshirt had the blind man in a tight grip, and was pummelling his head. No one at the takeaway, or the liquor shop two doors down, knows why, and the blind man does not say.
By now there are eight police officers gathered around the takeaway and a man in a white t-shirt waiting at the bus stop begins screaming: "Break my fingers like you just said you would. Beat me like you said you would." He lunges at an officer, and gets taken down. Officer Cappello finishes patting down the assault suspect. She unthreads the laces of his black boots, and stands him up. He wets himself. Officers bundle him into the waiting police wagon with the man in the white t-shirt.
This time it was an assault but it could well have been a murder. Twelve of the 14 murder victims so far this month were African-American males, shot dead in poor areas of the city rarely visited by tourists. The other two were an African-American woman and Alan Senitt, the Jewish activist.
Senitt, 27, had his throat slashed as he walked a female friend home from the cinema in the early hours of July 9. His friend was sexually assaulted. The Briton had been planning to spend the summer working for a Democratic presidential hopeful, the former governor of Virginia Mark Warner.
There was nothing to suggest it would be unsafe to walk his friend home. Georgetown, with its genteel rows of houses, tucked-away mansions and smart shops, is one of the richest neighbourhoods in Washington.
The suspects in Senitt's murder had set out that evening saying they wanted to cut someone, police said. Two adult males, a juvenile and a woman were arrested within hours of the killing, in bloodstained clothing and carrying Senitt's identification papers. The men are suspects in at least two previous such attacks.
Mr Ramsey's emergency declaration, announced shortly after Senitt's murder, led to the beefing up of patrols around national landmarks.
For those Washingtonians whose live in a clearly defined quadrant of the city that is mainly white and affluent, Senitt's killing exposed a vulnerability. But it was, say some, a warning that a city known to outsiders for its monuments and harbours has some of the cruellest inequality in America.
Last January, a veteran journalist from the New York Times, David Rosenbaum, was beaten by robbers as he took an after-dinner stroll around his own upper-class neighbourhood in Washington DC. His treatment by ambulance attendants and emergency room personnel, who left him on a gurney for an hour without medical care, exposed a callous and shambolic emergency system. Rosenbaum died from his injuries.
William Chambliss, a sociology professor at George Washington University, notes that crime rates, in Washington as in other American cities, are cyclical. A few years of declining incidents will be followed by a few years of increased crime. But he believes Senitt's murder is a product of other forces. Over the past 25 years, as the gulf between rich and poor has widened, the divisions between rich and poor, black and white, in Washington have grown more acute.
A property boom has turned the city into the third most expensive in America - good news for homeowners, but a blow to the 19% of Washingtonians living below the poverty line. (The national rate is 13%.)
In a city that is 60% black, African-American students have the lowest performance levels in the country; overall 37% of Washingtonians cannot read well enough to fill out a job application. Four percent carry the HIV virus - a higher rate of infection than any other American city. Mr Chambliss argues that such divisions find an outlet in violent crime. "It creates an anger and a callousness towards those people who benefit from society," he says. "There is a parallel with terrorism where the upper-class white people become the enemy just as the western infidels become the enemy of Islam. I see this as a pattern that could be the beginning of a very serious change in crime, and where it is committed, and how it is committed."
For a city that is the custodian of America's heritage, the prospect of a migration in violent crime to the Mall or Georgetown is disturbing. Hours after Washington's police chief declared his determination to make the streets safe again, two groups of tourists were robbed at gunpoint near the Washington monument by men wearing dark clothes and ski masks.
"Summertime just gets crazy," says Officer Cappello. "I just don't know what it is."
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The Ugly Truth: Our President is an Imbecile
Cenk Uygur07.18.2006
You know it, I know it and the American people know it. But everyone is afraid to say it. They say it privately, but people are afraid of saying it publicly because you will be branded as a liberal, elite, intellectual snob. But believe me, you don't have to be an intellectual to see how painfully stupid our president is.
Just look at the conversation he is having with world leaders at the G-8 summit. Mikes picked up the causal talk between the world leaders. Forget that Bush appears to have three sandwiches in his mouth while talking. Forget that he calls out to the Prime Minister of Britain as if he is Flounder in "Animal House." Forget that he uses profanity. I don't give a shit about those things.
I thought it was ridiculous that people made fun of George H. W, Bush for vomiting on the Japanese Prime Minister. What was he going to do? He had to puke, so he puked. It happens to the best of us, and more importantly, has nothing to do with his intelligence or how capable he is as a leader.
But his son's verbal vomit does have a lot to do with his ability to lead this country and the world. What I found to be the most damning is the least quoted part of Bush's comments. As you read this transcript, remember that this is not a small child talking, but the President of the United States of America:
The camera is focused elsewhere and it is not clear whom Bush is talking to, but possibly Chinese President Hu Jintao, a guest at the summit.
Bush: "Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?
Bush: "This is your neighborhood. It doesn't take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?"
Reply is inaudible.
Bush: "Eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country."
At this point, the president seems to bring someone else into the conversation.
Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home."
He turns his attention to a server.
Bush: "No, Diet Coke, Diet Coke."
He turns back to whomever he was talking with.
Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China."
Russia's big and so is China??????? This guys sounds like a third grader. Do you know anyone who would have a conversation like this with their neighbor, let alone a business associate, let alone a world leader? Who's proud to know that Russia is big and so is China?
Can anyone now credibly claim that Bush is secretly working on a master plan behind the scenes and that he's just playing cowboy for the cameras? I hope the master plan doesn't involve figuring out how long it takes to get to China.
If someone is this ignorant, they're usually embarrassed and try not to talk much. But this guy is so dumb he has no idea how dumb he is. This sounds like a conversation you might have with a child, a mentally challenged child. Johnny, do you know how big Russia is? How about China?
This would all be unfortunate if George was your dentist, or worse yet, your accountant. But he is the leader of the free world. This man makes life or death decisions every day. If you say you're not scared about that, you're lying.
Would you let him do the books for your business? Would you trust your company in his hands for eight years? (No matter how Republican you are, you know you just said no to that question.) Would you trust him to be your kids' guidance counselor and take his advice seriously? If your kids were in the Army and he was their field commander, would you feel good about putting their lives in his hands?
Come on, no one is crazy enough to say yes to that. Yet, he has all of our lives in his hands. The emperor has no clothes. The emperor has no clothes. It's about time someone in the mainstream media said it.
In the old empires, there would be a lot of marriages between the royal families. And from time to time, these inter-family marriages would produce a mentally challenged son who would inherit the throne. This would set the empire back for hundreds of years. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. Russia is big and so is China.
The Democrats for a long time have felt embarrassed about pointing out the obvious. The emperor has no brain. This is what I can't understand about the Democrats, they're always playing patty cakes while the Republicans are ripping their face off. John Kerry should have stood at the lectern during the debates and pointed to George Bush and said, "The leader of this country has to be the best and the brightest. If any of you think that he is the best and the brightest America has to offer, go ahead and vote for him!"
The theory is that people would be turned off by that. The theory assumes that people are also idiots and they love their cohorts. That is simply not true. Everyone understands that they have a friend they'd like to go fishing with and a friend they can trust to look after their affairs - and they're not necessarily the same guy. And that your fishing buddy might not be a great choice for President of the United States of America.
Kerry should have embarrassed Bush, made people feel sorry for him. It would have hurt in the short run and given him a temporary downward blip in the numbers, but in the end, when people went into that voting booth, they would have felt pity for Bush - in that scenario, Kerry wins easily. Nobody votes for someone they pity.
Unfortunately, right now we are in the position of being pitied by the rest of the world. We have third grader for a President. And worse yet, the Vice President has him convinced he is the second coming of Winston Churchill. Scared yet?
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Our dumb president
By Joseph Hughes
You know, every time the president's intelligence comes up for debate, the right wing is quick to tell everyone that, in fact, President Bush isn't an ignorant moron. What's more, not only is he not an ignorant moron, but he's also not an arrogant boor, his behavior on the world stage not a cause for embarrassment. He's a Yale man, after all, with a Harvard MBA to boot! Well today, I'm calling "bullshit" on the right wing. The president is all of those things ... and more.
The ignorance, the boorishness, the embarrassing behavior were all on display at this year's G8 Summit, which concluded Monday. Between the president's stuffing a roll in his mouth to his use of "shit" in an exchange with Tony Blair to his witless banter with world leaders to his more-than-awkward surprise "massage" of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, our dumb president has never been dumber or more embarrassing. Or, for that matter, more AWOL when the world needs our leadership most. But that's alright, his defenders will say, he's just being himself, being authentic. Great. Our president is an authentic jackass.
It was the "shit" heard 'round the world. In fact, it drew top billing with many news outlets at a time when the world appears to be unravelling as we speak. Bush, who, like Blair, didn't know their conversation was being recorded, called the British prime minister over at the luncheon that closed the summit. "Blair," Bush asked, "what are you doing? You leaving?" When Blair shifted the conversation to trade negotiations, Bush shifted it back, thanking Blair for a sweater he gave the president as a gift, most likely for his recent birthday. Then, the conversation shifted to the Middle East. After a brief exchange, and while continuing to talk with his mouth full of what appeared to be a roll, the president said, "See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over."
While using profanity and speaking with your mouth full are by no means nothing new - just ask my girlfriend, who could tell you both have been a part of my daily repertoire for years - I'm not the president. I'm not this nation's top ambassador to the rest of the planet. I'm not the public face of the United States of America. I'm just an average American and a blogger. I write things about people ranging from morons like Brad Stine and Ann Coulter to role models like Edward R. Murrow and Al Gore. I don't have my finger on the nuclear (or the "nucular") trigger. I don't travel in Air Force One, nor do I have a Secret Service detail. And I don't attend summits where I'm expected to, at the bare minimum, act like I've been there before. But Bush is all of these things; I'd just love to be able to dress him up and take him out without him embarrassing himself - or us.
So the president said "shit" and couldn't hold a conversation without stuffing his face. We've all done it. But what's as concerning to me, if not more, was the manner by which the president spoke with his fellow world leaders in an unguarded moment caught on tape. Hint: Like an idiot. When asked by someone, most likely an aide, something about whether or not the president wanted a prepared statement to close the meeting, Bush replied, "No. Just gonna make it up. I'm not going to talk too damn long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long." Then, the president shifted his conversation to, quite likely though the exchange wasn't on camera, Chinese President Hu Jintao. "Gotta go home," Bush said. "Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?" Continuing, Bush added, "This is your neighborhood. It doesn't take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?"
Though the reply was inaudible, Bush then said, "Eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country." As the Washington Post indicates, it's at this point that the president apparently brought someone else into the exchange. "It takes him eight hours to fly home," Bush said, telling a server that he wanted a Diet Coke. "It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China." Russia's big and so is China? Just gonna make it up? Is he, as Cenk Uygur said, a third grader? Do you feel a lot safer knowing that you voted for a man whose idea of tableside conversation is asking world leaders how long their ride home is and marveling at the size of their countries?
When he wasn't showing his grasp of global geography, the president was busy doing things that would normally trigger a workplace sexual harassment workshop. Cameras captured the president walking behind Merkel and giving her an impromptu shoulder massage. Her look, which mirrors the look of any unsuspecting female in a bar when a drunk gets touchy-feely, was priceless. Bush's look, coincidentally, matched the look of that drunk. I mean, what the fuck? Somehow, I don't see former presidents Bush or Clinton doing this with Helmut Kohl. Nor, also, do I see either Bush or Clinton asking their secretary of state for permission to use the restroom, as this president has in the past. But a massage? Seriously? I know these summits can be tiring, tedious affairs, but does that fact warrant our president acting like the office letch? I doubt it.
Let's face facts: Our president is dumb. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know how to act in public. And it's always been that way. It's been more than 70 years since "... the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". More than 40 since "... ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." And, in that time, we've gone from the measured words of true statesmen to "Russia's big and so is China." Let me be the latest to ask: What the hell happened? When did flipping pancakes, taking hunting trips or throwing a football become more important for our presidential candidates than knowing what the hell they were doing? More specifically, when did we, as Americans, decide that that was what we wanted out of our presidents?
I'd sure like to know, because, as I've said before, "Isn't it a tad insane that we care more about whether we can have a beer with our president than whether we think he can save us from a fucking disaster or actually knows the difference between his asshole and a hole in the ground when it comes to foreign policy?" Who cares if the president would be a great guy to have a drink with? Hell, this one isn't even supposed to have a drink. Or, maybe he's not supposed to but he has, which would go a long way to explaining Bush's behavior at the G8 Summit. Either way, he was an embarrassment. And he always has been.
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Eight Year Old Girl Raped in Broad Daylight
AP
7/20/2006
ST. PETERSBURG, FL -- An 8-year-old girl was raped on the side of a residential street in full daylight less than half a block from her apartment, police said.
Someone who witnessed the crime Wednesday afternoon chased away the perpetrator, who remained on the loose Thursday, police spokesman Bill Proffit said. The girl was treated at a hospital and released.
The girl was leaving a park at about 12:55 p.m. with her 7-year-old brother when a man grabbed her from behind, pulled her to the ground and raped her, police said. Their mother had left them alone for a few minutes to return home and turn off the kitchen stove.
A man playing basketball nearby said he heard the screams and ran to the scene. A motorist who witnessed it began honking her horn and dialed 911. The perpetrator got up and ran away.
Proffitt said police believe they recovered the man's shirt, which he apparently stripped off as he ran away, but they don't know his identity. People in the middle-class neighborhood say he may be a transient.
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Everyday Terror
'Borderline psychopath' joins brother on long-term offender list
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 | 1:27 PM CT
CBC News
A Saskatchewan alcoholic with a string of more than 30 criminal convictions has become the second person in his family to be designated a long-term offender this year.
The long-term offender designation is used for people convicted of a serious personal injury offence who are likely to re-offend. They are given special attention in jail and are supervised for up to 10 years after their release.
Maxwell Adrian Goforth, 32, of Regina, was sentenced to seven years in prison for aggravated assault after stabbing a man in the back and leaving him for dead. His previous convictions included:
* Breaking a woman's arms when she refused to drive him home.
* Fracturing several bones in a woman's face when she called him a punk.
* Jumping on a man's face while wearing cowboy boots.
His brother, Edgar Richard Goforth, was declared a long-term offender in April and given 3½ years in prison and 10 years of supervision for assaulting a Regina woman with a wine bottle. He is appealing his designation.
Edgar has run up more than 100 convictions for offences that included:
* Beating his wife with a metal coat hanger.
* Firing a rifle into a truck full of people.
* Nearly killing a man in a jailhouse fight.
* Beating his wife inside a correctional centre because she was late for a visit.
Serious alcoholics
Both men have been described as serious alcoholics with anti-social personality disorders and violent tendencies, the Regina Leader-Post reported.
Judge Guy Chicoine of the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench told a sentencing hearing that Maxwell committed "a vicious, callous and unwarranted attack" in 2004, which could easily have turned fatal."
"But for the fact that [the victim] received prompt medical attention ... Mr. [Maxwell] Goforth would probably have faced an even more serious charge," the judge said.
Borderline psychopath
A psychologist testified that Maxwell Goforth is a borderline psychopath of at least average intelligence, who can be street-smart and amiable.
However, the psychologist said, Maxwell doesn't express remorse for his victims and doesn't understand the severity of his alcoholism.
The judge warned Maxwell that he could be designated a dangerous offender if he doesn't reform his ways. The dangerous-offender designation would result in an indeterminate jail term.
"Should he fail to get his alcohol problem under control and resolve as of today that he has consumed his last drink ... he will probably not be so fortunate to escape a dangerous-offender designation next time he appears in court," Chicoine said.
Most long-term offenders are sexual offenders, but some have been convicted of common and aggravated assault, arson and even impaired driving causing bodily harm.
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FBI director urges Canada to get tough on terrorism
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 | 9:12 AM ET
CBC News
The FBI's director has urged Canada to follow American footsteps and introduce tougher penalties for terrorism-related offences.
Robert Mueller said Canada risks becoming a haven for extremists if it fails to strengthen its anti-terrorism laws.
"Countries who do not afford extended jail time to those who engage in material support for terrorism are opening themselves up, in my mind, to the possibility that these networks will find a haven in which to operate," the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday in Toronto.
Speaking at a policing conference on global security issues, Mueller said the arrests in recent weeks of the 17 bomb-plot suspects in Ontario is a good example of international collaboration.
But he warned that countries need to remain vigilant and work together to share intelligence.
"The only way to dismantle these networks is the exchange of information," he said. "If you look at terrorist cases that have occurred, the arrests made in the U.K., Canada, and U.S., you'll see almost everyone had ties between our various countries."
Toronto police Chief Bill Blair, who attended the conference, agreed that Canada should explore stiffer American-style sentences.
Blair added that it's imperative police authorities recognize the threat of cross-border crime.
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Toronto-bound plane sent back after confusing bomb comment
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 | 4:34 PM ET
CBC News
A Toronto-bound Air Canada plane was forced to turn back to Rochester, N.Y., after a man apparently made a confusing remark about a bomb that may have been the result of language barriers.
A Sri Lankan couple carrying Canadian passports suspected to be fake were taken into custody by Homeland Security officials late Wednesday morning.
Air Canada Flight 7405 departed at 10:15 a.m. ET, but shortly after takeoff was forced to return to Rochester, where all 11 passengers were removed.
Officials said the flight was returned to Rochester as a precaution.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not yet concluded its investigation, but there are reports that the plane was forced to turn back because the man allegedly made a comment about a bomb. However, it is believed there were significant language barriers.
But the two in custody were identified as suspicious passengers before the flight boarded when customs officers conducted a search of their files.
When the couple was taken into custody back in Rochester, the woman apparently became upset, complained about chest pains and said she needed her bag.
Officials from a county bomb squad, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Joint-Terrorism Task Force, and the Customs and Border Protection Bureau of Homeland Security were on scene.
There are no details on whether Canadian officials are involved in the investigation.
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Polish labourers kept in Italian 'prison camp'
John Hooper in Rome and Daniel McLaughlin
Thursday July 20, 2006
The Guardian
Polish farmworkers who travelled to southern Italy were kept in a "concentration camp" where they were fed on little more than bread and water, expected to labour in the fields for up to 15 hours a day, and beaten by guards who called themselves kapos, it was revealed yesterday.
Police across Europe were hunting seven mobsters who escaped when Italian Carabinieri raided the camp at dawn on Tuesday. Sixteen others - 15 Poles and an Italian - were jailed in Italy and a further nine people were arrested in Poland as part of an extensive cross-border operation.
Prosecutors in the southern port city of Bari are looking into whether the deaths of two Poles found in the area might have been linked to the racket.
Poland's police chief, Marek Bienkowski, said: "Workers were beaten with cudgels and monitored by armed guards with dogs. Cases of rape have also come to light." He said some of the workers were forced into prostitution by the criminal gang that had lured them to Italy.
Italy's chief organised crime prosecutor, Piero Grasso, said the barracks where the workers were kept "weren't workplaces, but out and out concentration camps".
Stories of the exploitation of immigrants by organised criminals are relatively common in Italy, as they are throughout the European Union. But it is highly unusual for the victims in such cases to be the citizens of another EU country and for the alleged abuse to be so extreme.
Mr Bienkowski said: "Gangsters in Poland recruited people looking for seasonal jobs picking fruit and vegetables in Italy through announcements in local newspapers. Those who applied were charged 400-800 zlotys (£68-£136) for the journey, plus another €150 (£102) when they reached Italy."
The Poles were bussed to Orta Nova, near the Adriatic coast. A source close to the Italian investigation told the Guardian that, in theory, they earned €3 an hour picking tomatoes. That alone was half the legal rate. But, in practice, they did not even receive that because of "deductions" imposed by their employers.
Those who went sick were docked €20 a day. "They were also obliged to pay the costs of their overnight accommodation and food," said Mr Bienkowski. "This caused most of those employed to fall into a deliberately created spiral of debt."
He said the guards referred to themselves as kapos, the name given to wartime concentration camp inmates who worked as guards. According to Polish media reports, the camp was run by three Poles, two Ukrainians and an Algerian.
The Italian source said: "The workers were not chained to their beds or anything like that, but they were kept in an isolated spot with no real chance of escape. We listened in to telephone calls they made to their relatives back in Poland in which the relatives said: 'But why don't you leave?' And they answered: 'But I don't even know where I am'."
There was no running water, no sanitation and no heating in the barracks where the workers were kept. The only bedding were mattresses spread out on the floor.
The operation that led to this week's arrests was hailed by the Italian authorities as a breakthrough in trans-European cooperation. Police and prosecutors from Krakow to Bari were involved in planning the raids.
Polish media reports said the camp operated for two years, and probably used more than 1,000 labourers.
Hundreds of thousands of Poles head west each year, escaping an unemployment rate of 16% that is the highest in the EU. Some of the workers who were freed on Tuesday were returning to Poland. But some were reported to have stayed to look for alternative work in Italy. Around 40,000 Poles work in the country legally, and at least the same number work in Italy's vast black economy.
The plight of migrant workers around Orta Nova came to light in the Polish press last year, when police freed 105 people - 90 of them Poles - from another, similar farm.
One man who returned from the area told the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza: "The guards were complete bandits, tattooed everywhere, even on their faces. You could see at first glance that we were working with criminals, and they didn't even hide it. We were woken up early and taken to the fields.
"We had to pay €1.50 for the journey. We worked without a break until 9pm. If you wanted a day off you had to pay €25. We got €6-€7 for filling a 200kg container with tomatoes."
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U.S. Successfully Completes Missile Test
AP
July 20, 2006
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- The Air Force successfully launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile early Thursday.
The Minuteman III dummy warheads were fired at 3:14 a.m. and traveled about 4,200 miles before hitting a water target in the Marshall Islands.
The launch was delayed by a day because of a power outage at a radar facility that handles flights in and out of Southern California. The purpose is to test the defense system's reliability and accuracy.
Earlier this month, North Korea shook up the world by firing several missiles into the Sea of Japan, including a failed long-range missile.
The North Korean launch raised questions about the readiness of the U.S. missile defense system, which includes interceptors housed in underground silos in California and Alaska.
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World War 3
Turkey threaten to invade Iraq
19/07/2006
iol News
Turkish officials have signalled that they are prepared to send their army into northern Iraq if US and Iraqi forces do not take steps to combat Turkish Kurdish guerrillas there.
Turkish officials have signalled that they are prepared to send their army into northern Iraq if US and Iraqi forces do not take steps to combat Turkish Kurdish guerrillas there.
Such a move could put Turkey on a collision course with the US, which has repeatedly warned against unilateral moves in Iraq.
But Turkey is facing increasing domestic pressure to take some kind of action after 15 soldiers, police and guards were killed in fighting with the guerrillas in the past week.
"The government is really in a bind," said Seyfi Tashan, director of the Foreign Policy Institute at Bilkent University in Ankara. "On the one hand they don't want things to break down with the US. On the other hand, the public is crying for action."
Diplomats and experts cautioned that the increasingly aggressive Turkish statements were likely aimed at calming public anger and pressing the US and Iraq to act against the rebels, who are based in northern Iraq's rugged Qandil mountains.
But they also caution that Turkish politicians and military officers could take action if nothing is done.
US officials in Turkey and Washington were in contact with Turkish officials and military commanders to press them to work with Washington to combat the guerrillas and not take act alone, a Western diplomat said. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.
Turkey's NTV television and Hurriyet newspaper reported yesterday that the government has instructed the military to draw up plans for a push into northern Iraq and to advise on the possibilities that such a move could lead to a clash with Iraqi Kurdish forces or US troops in the area.
Any operation was unlikely to take place before the end of August, when the current military chief of staff is replaced by an officer widely regarded as a hard-liner, NTV said.
The Western diplomat said the Turkish military has long had plans for fighting guerrillas in northern Iraq. Those plans range from limited artillery and air strikes on guerrilla bases to attacks by commando forces and a broader ground offensive.
American officials, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have repeatedly warned Turkey against entering northern Iraq, one of the few stable areas of the country.
US Ambassador Ross Wilson said on Monday that Turkish, Iraqi and US cooperation is a "more sensible way to go forward than perhaps to ... try to do it unilaterally."
In Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan regional government that runs the north of the country, appeared to be addressing Turkish concerns about guerrilla attacks when he said yesterday that Iraqi Kurds "won't allow anyone to harm our neighbours by using our territory."
But he also warned that the problem with the guerrillas "cannot be solved through military means alone," Turkey's DHA news agency reported.
Turkey considers the guerrillas to be terrorists and has refused to talk with them.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to be confirming reports that the military was ordered to draft plans when he said yesterday that "we know how to take care of (our terrorism problem) on our own... Our competent units are making preparations and will continue to do so."
Erdogan's spokesman, Akif Beki, refused to comment on the reports and instead referred to government spokesman Cemil Cicek's Monday statement to the press. Cicek called on Iraqi and US forces to take stronger action against the rebels and warned that if they did not, "Turkey is going to use its international rights until the very end."
Officials on Tuesday reported no unusual military activity in the border regions.
A Turkish push into northern Iraq could also threaten relations with EU countries, which have been pressing Turkey to improve minority Kurdish rights as a step toward defusing tensions in the Kurdish southeast.
An incursion might also be a very difficult military mission.
The guerrillas are mostly based in the Qandil mountains, an area 80km (50 miles) from the Turkish border with Iran. The guerrillas infiltrate into south-eastern Turkey from those bases to attack.
Turkey has long had some 2,000 troops in northern Iraq near the border monitoring the area.
If Turkey sent in military units they would have to travel through territory controlled by potentially hostile Iraqi Kurds. The area is mountainous and Turkish Kurdish guerrillas often cross into bordering Iranian territory, which is mostly Kurdish.
"I don't think it is Turkey's desire to stage an intervention in northern Iraq," said Ilter Turan, professor of international relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. Turkey "is simply trying to draw attention to the fact that it is an untenable position."
But he quickly warned that "if you don't tread a line very carefully, you can become a captive of your own rhetoric."
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Massacres Soar in Central Iraq: Maliki Government Discredited
By PATRICK COCKBURN
July 19, 2006
Baghdad
A civil war between Sunni and Shia is spreading rapidly through central Iraq with each community seeking revenge for the latest massacre. A suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives blew himself up yesterday outside the golden-domed mosque in Kufa yesterday killing at least 59 and injuring 132 Shia.
In the last ten days, while the world has been absorbed by the war in Lebanon, sectarian massacres have started to take place on an almost daily basis leading observers to fear a level of killing approaching that of Rwanda immediately before the genocide of 1994. On one single spot on the west bank of the Tigris river in north Baghdad between 10 and 12 bodies have been drifting ashore every day.
In Kufa, a city on the Euphrates south of Baghdad, the suicide bomber drove his vehicle into a dusty square 100 yards from a Shia shrine at 7.30am. He knew that poor day laborers gathered there looking for work. He said "I need labourers" and they clambered into his van which exploded a few moments later killing them and other workers standing around. "Four of my cousins were killed," said Nasir Feisal, who survived the blast. "They were standing beside the van. Their bodies were scattered far apart by the blast.
The dramatic escalation in sectarian killings started on July 9 when black-clad Shia militiamen sealed off the largely Sunni al-Jihad district in west Baghdad and slaughtered every Sunni they identified, killing over 40 of them after glancing at their identity cards. Since then there has been a tit-for-tat massacre almost every day. On Monday gunmen, almost certainly Sunni, first attacked Shia mourners at a funeral near Mahmoudiya, a market town of 100,00 people 75 miles north of Kufa. They then shot down another 50 people in the local market.
The failure of the newly formed government of Nouri al-Maliki to stop the mass killings has rapidly discredited it. The Shia and Sunni militias - in the latter case the insurgents fighting the Americans - are becoming stronger as people look to them for protection. After the explosion in Kufa angry crowds hurled stones at the police demanding that the militiamen of the Mehdi Army, followers of the nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, take over security in the city. "We want the Mehdi Army to protect us," screamed a woman in a black abaya robe. "We want Muqtada's army to protect us." Other people chanted at the police, who began to fire in the air to disperse them, "you are traitors!" and "American agents!"
In much of Baghdad the militias have taken over and are killing or driving out the minority community. It has become very easy to get killed anywhere in central Iraq, where one third of the 27 million population live, through belonging to the wrong sect. Many people carry two sets of identity papers, one forged at a cost of about $60, so they can claim to be a Sunni at Sunni checkpoints and Shia at Shia checkpoints.
Even this may not be enough to stay alive. Aware of the number of forged identity papers being used Mehdi Army checkpoints in the largely Shia Shu'ala district in west Baghdad have started to ask drivers questions about Shia theology to which a Sunni would not know the answer. One man, who was indeed a Shia, passed the test but was still executed because he was driving a car with number plates from Anbar, a wholly Sunni province.
While the White House and Downing Street still refuse to use the phrase 'civil war' Iraqis in the centre of the country have no doubt what is happening. Baghdad mortuary alone received 1,595 bodies in June. It has got worse since then. Many people are fleeing. On one day early this month at al-Salhai bus station in central Baghdad there were 23 buses, each carrying 49 people as well as 30 four wheel drive vehicles, all departing for Syria carrying refugees. Access to Jordan has become more difficult with many Iraqis turned back at the border. All buses have Sunni drivers these days since five Shia drivers were killed as 'spies' driving through the Sunni heart lands of western Iraq on their way to Jordan and Syria.
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Russia to back UN Iran resolution
Thursday 20 July 2006, 10:52 Makka Time, 7:52 GMT
Russia is prepared to back a UN Security Council resolution that would set a deadline on Iran's response to incentives over its nuclear programme.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said: "We will be ready to support a resolution which will strengthen the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency with regards to Iran and will ask it for an answer after a particular period."
The draft under consideration in the UN would make it mandatory for Iran to suspend enrichment and includes threats of sanctions if it does not comply.
Lavrov did not say whether Russia would back imposing sanctions if Iran failed to comply, striking a more conciliatory note than the US.
Vitaly Churkin, a Russian ambassador, said: "We are not in a rush at all. We do not want to ambush Iran in any way. We're very much in a negotiating political mode. We do not want to dictate things to Iran.
"Nobody's pushing, nobody's pushing Iran anywhere."
The resoultion comes after Tehran did not respond to a package of commercial and technical incentives that was submitted last month by six world powers in an attempt to persuade it to stop its uranium enrichment programme.
Foreign ministers of the six member countries - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US - met on July 12 and expressed disappointment that Iran had failed to respond positively to the package.
"A lot of time has passed, a lot more than the Iranian president promised our president in terms of when Iran would give its reply," Lavrov said in an interview published in Kommersant newspaper.
Russia is one of the five powers with a veto on the Security Council.
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The daily grind
Brian Whitaker
Thursday July 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Four front-page headlines from the Lebanese Daily Star this week:
Monday: War takes even deadlier turns
Tuesday: The ruin of a nation
Wednesday: Wasteland in the making
Thursday: And then it got worse
It is 8am on a beautiful summer's morning. Outside Café Younes, half a dozen men are sipping coffee and reading newspapers under the shade of the trees. Fifteen minutes later, somewhere not very far away, a bomb hits Beirut, but nobody flinches or even glances up from his newspaper. The Lebanese are accustomed to it.
Around the corner, Starbucks has been closed since the start of the bombardment, as have so many other cafes and shops. The problem, apart from the lack of customers, is that many of the staff have left Beirut or can no longer get to work.
For a coffee shop, Café Younes probably has the longest drinks menu in Beirut: there's Colombian coffee, Ethiopian coffee, Guatemalan, Brazilian, and more. A sign boasts that it has been in business since 1935, and Amin, the proprietor, is determined to battle on as long as supplies of coffee last.
For the moment, he has plenty. He roasts coffee on the premises, filling the street with its aroma - and green, unroasted coffee beans keep for a long time, he says.
Supplies of other things are more precarious and one of the government's main concerns is to keep everyone fed. "We have essential supplies for two months," Sami Haddad, the minister of economy and trade, said yesterday.
"They are in certain locations in the country but there is a difficulty of transportation. Any large transportation vehicles are being bombed ... There is difficulty getting flour to some villages."
To conserve fuel, power is being turned off in Beirut for six hours a day. "Our fuel will last 45 to 60 days on this basis," the minister said.
Yesterday, Israel launched 100 strikes against Lebanon - roughly one every 15 minutes. It was the bloodiest day so far, with 57 civilians killed, along with one Hizbullah fighter, according to the official figures.
The number of civilian deaths has now exceeded 300, and the average seems to be about 40 to 50 a day.
"Civilians are being deliberately targeted," Mr Haddad said. On Tuesday, the Israelis hit a convoy of trucks carrying medical supplies from Syria in the Bekaa valley. Several people were reported injured when a church in Rmeish was hit.
Yesterday, for the first time, the Israelis bombed the predominantly Christian neighbourhood of Ashrafiyeh, in east Beirut. Their target was a truck used to drill for water, which they apparently mistook for a Hizbullah rocket launcher. To anyone on the ground, the idea of Hizbullah fighters operating from the Christian heartland seems utterly bizarre.
Four front-page headlines from the Lebanese Daily Star this week:
Monday: War takes even deadlier turns
Tuesday: The ruin of a nation
Wednesday: Wasteland in the making
Thursday: And then it got worse
Some of the local TV stations have cameras permanently trained on the southern neighbourhood, to catch the plumes of smoke - "live", as it were - when the bombs drop. A friend watching the other night noted that he could see and hear the explosions on TV a second or two before before the bang reached Hamra, near the city centre.
Amid all this, nobody seems to be talking very much about the original issue - the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah. According to the Daily Star yesterday, Lebanon "has been chosen as a battleground in which the Israelis will brutalise the Lebanese in order to teach the Iranians a lesson on behalf of the west". Get your head round that, if you can.
Today, all being well, we shall see the Royal Navy's biggest evacuation of British and Commonwealth citizens so far. An aircraft carrier, HMS Illustrious, and an assault ship, HMS Bulwark, are expected to arrive, along with a civilian vessel. They could take as many as 2,800 people to safety in Cyprus today.
The Britons being evacuated are something of a disappointment for the tabloids. They are not, on the whole, your average lobster-pink Torremolinos holidaymakers. Many have brown skins and Arabic names, and most have dual British and Lebanese nationality.
On Tuesday, a 12-year-old boy posed for the Daily Mail as he stepped on to HMS Gloucester, waving a couple of English flags (presumably left over from the World Cup). The only thing that marred this patriotic scene was the boy's name - Rami.
A freelance journalist who sent photos to a tabloid paper was informed by a disappointed editor that the people in his pictures were not very "British-looking".
Less clear among all this is the fate of the thousands of Filipinos and Asians who cook and clean for Lebanese families and walk their dogs. I have no idea how many of them are leaving, or would want to leave it they could.
The rumour now in Beirut is that once most of the westerners have left, the Israelis will feel free to blast the city to smithereens. Personally, I doubt it - and I sincerely hope I'm right. There are still a large number of television cameras in the city, which ought to give the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, food for thought.
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Money Problems
Rich people feel "insecure, troubled"
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-20 07:33:40
BEIJING, July 20 -- Chinese millionaires feel insecure and troubled, even as they enjoy the social status and the sense of accomplishment their wealth brings.
That's the finding of a survey by the Guangzhou-based newspaper Nanfang Weekend, which has selected 80 persons for its annual domestic wealth creator list every year since 2004.
Before the newspaper released this year's list, it sent questionnaires to 60 of the listed millionaires to study their attitudes toward faith, marriage, life, career and money, and received 33 answers that it considered valid.
The surveyed millionaires have an average wealth of 2.2 billion yuan (US$275 million) and range in age from 33 to 68. More than half of them have had higher education.
"The millionaires we chose in this survey are either from East China or South China, where private businesses started and have a relatively better environment for private enterprises' development," said Cao Xin, in charge of the project.
The survey also found that a majority of the millionaires love and hate money at the same time.
Seven out of the 33 surveyed even said annoyance is the main thing money has brought them along with social status and a sense of accomplishment.
Sociologists agreed that the results of the survey turned out to be quite believable.
Lu Xueyi, a researcher with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the millionaires' insecure feelings could be regarded as a reflection of their true thoughts.
It has something to do with society's tendency to hate and envy rich people when the economic and social structure is changing, said Lu, who was quoted by the China News Service.
These millionaires were not private entrepreneurs from the very beginning. More than 75 per cent of them have worked in such places as the government and State-owned enterprises.
Sixteen of them, nearly half of the respondents, are Party members. This percentage is close to that in government, which the surveyors said they were surprised to learn.
Though most of them said their careers are only part of their lives, they tend to value career and wealth most, above marriage and family.
Most of these millionaires said do not believe in any formal religion. Only 10 said they were Buddhists. Half of them said they were tolerant of extramarital affairs in general.
At the end of last year, there were 4.39 million private enterprises and 11.09 million private entrepreneurs on the mainland, according to statistics from the country's industrial and commercial administration. About 2,200 private enterprises have registered capital of more than 100 million yuan (US$12.5 million), the administration said.
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Yahoo Stock Falls to Biggest One-Day Drop
By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer
Wednesday July 19, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO -- Yahoo's stock price plunged by nearly 22 percent Wednesday, marking its largest one-day drop ever after the Internet powerhouse postponed a pivotal change to the advertising formula that propels its profits.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company jarred Wall Street with the unexpected delay late Tuesday after announcing solid second-quarter results that mirrored analyst estimates.
On Wednesday, Yahoo Inc.'s shares plummeted $7.04, or 21.8 percent, to close at $25.20 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The downturn surpassed a 20.9 percent downturn in Yahoo's stock in October 2000 after the company warned investors it was about to be hard hit by the dot-com bust.
The wipeout erased about $10.4 billion in shareholder wealth.
At one point, Yahoo's shares sold for as little as $25.04 -- the cheapest since April 2004.
Here's Yahoo's problem as Wall Street sees it: the owner of the Internet's most trafficked Web site keeps raking in more money as advertisers continue to shift their spending online, but it still lags well behind search engine leader Google Inc.
And now it looks like Yahoo won't be closing that gap as soon as management had promised.
"I can sense the frustration of investors," said Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. "It's discouraging and disheartening, especially because Yahoo didn't really give a good reason for the delay."
Rashtchy is maintaining his "outperform" rating on Yahoo's stock, although he lowered his 12-month target for the shares from $42 to $36.
Other analysts weren't as forgiving. For instance, JP Morgan Securities analyst Imran Khan downgraded Yahoo's stock to "neutral" and expressed doubts whether the company will even be able up to live up to its financial projections for the rest of the year. He also believes Yahoo is destined to fall further behind in its technology race with Google, which will provide an update on its progress Thursday when it is scheduled to release its second-quarter results.
Yahoo's bad news didn't take a big toll on Google, whose shares dipped $4.05, or 1 percent, to close at $399 on the Nasdaq. Google's market value of about $120 billion is now more than three times greater than Yahoo's.
Despite Wednesday's harsh backlash against Yahoo, the company isn't exactly struggling. Second-quarter revenue rose 26 percent to $1.58 billion and, after stripping out windfalls and accounting changes that pushed up last year's results, earnings rose 8 percent to $164 million.
Numbers like that are just one of the reasons market observers like ThinkEquity Partners analyst Stewart Barry view Yahoo's stock as a bargain right now.
Wednesday's sell-off wouldn't have been so severe if Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel and his management team hadn't delayed a much-anticipated change in the company's formula for displaying ad links by one to three months.
Investors have been eagerly awaiting the new ad platform, hoping the improvements would enable Yahoo to do a better job displaying short ads. The clicks on those ads, which typically appear as text on the top and sides of Web pages, are critical because they trigger commissions for Yahoo and its partners.
Google's financial growth during the past two years has outstripped Yahoo's partly because it has developed a better formula for determining which ads to display alongside search results -- an advantage that even Semel concedes.
"We are not monetizing as well and it is costing us a lot of money," Semel said Tuesday in an interview.
Because Google closely guards it technology secrets, its advertising formula remains one of the Internet's great mysteries.
But this much is clear: Google has been far more adept than Yahoo at analyzing what people are entering into a search box or reading on a Web page and then quickly deciphering which ads are most likely to gain attention to possibly garner a revenue-producing click.
Although Yahoo holds an advantage over its rival in serving up visual advertising, search advertising for now is the biggest moneymaking channel, which is why Yahoo has been working on fixing its biggest shortcoming for more than a year under a project code-named "Panama."
In May, Yahoo raised hopes by telling analysts it planned to start rolling out the search advertising changes in the third quarter and complete the process in the fourth quarter.
Yahoo now doesn't expect its new approach to be fully deployed until early next year. Semel said Yahoo didn't want to risk a hiccup as advertisers ramped up their spending for the holiday season.
"We feel terrific about (the new formula) and know the importance of it," Semel said. "There is nothing wrong or nothing we are upset about."
Yahoo still boasts the Internet's largest audience with 402 million unique users. But it has been losing favor among investors as Google has widened its lead in the lucrative search market.
Through June, Google held a 44.7 percent share of the U.S. search engine market, up from 36.9 percent at the same time last year, according to comScore Media Metrix. Yahoo ranked second with a 28.5 percent share, down from 30.4 percent a year ago, comScore said.
Comment: The wipeout erased about $10.4 billion in shareholder wealth.
Yikes...
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Ford Reports $123 Million 2Q Loss
By TOM KRISHER
Associated Press
Jul 20, 2006
DEARBORN, Mich. -- Ford Motor Co. said Thursday that it lost $123 million in the second quarter due to slumping sales and the cost of shedding personnel. The nation's second-biggest automaker also signaled it plans additional steps in its restructuring effort.
Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford said in a conference call that by the end of the year the company would be about a third of the way toward its goal of closing 14 plants and cutting 25,000 to 30,000 jobs by 2012.
The loss of 7 cents per share for the April-June period contrasts with a profit of $946 million, or 47 cents per share, in the second quarter of last year. Revenue fell 6 percent to $41.97 billion from $44.55 billion.
Excluding special items, Ford's second-quarter loss from continuing operations was 3 cents a share. Wall Street had been expecting a profit of 12 cents per share, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.
Its shares fell 6 cents to $6.27 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, near the lower end of their 52-week range of $6.17 to $11.19.
The company said it had a pretax loss of $797 million in North America, an improvement over last year's $907 million loss in the second quarter. It said the cost reductions were offset by the market's shift away from trucks to lower-margin cars, higher sales incentives and adverse foreign currency exchange rates.
"We've seen an improvement in North America results in the second quarter, but the external factors we face aren't going to get any easier," Bill Ford said in a statement.
Analysts have criticized the company for keeping quiet on its restructuring progress, but Bill Ford said the company will discuss "additional actions" within the next 60 days.
The company took a charge of $171 million, or 6 cents per share, to shed employees at plants it is idling. It also took a related charge of $315 million, or 11 cents per share, due to pension curtailments due to employee buyouts in the second quarter.
But the charges were partially offset by a gain of $148 million, or 8 cents per share, due to a gain that Mazda Motor Corp. took on the transfer of its pension liabilities to the Japanese government. Ford owns about a third of Mazda. Also offsetting the charges was a favorable adjustment of $146 million, or 5 cents per share, to a $1.7 billion charge for layoffs and termination packages in the first quarter, the company said.
For the first half of the year, Ford lost $1.3 billion, or 70 cents a share, in contrast to a profit of $2.16 billion, or $1.05 a share, a year ago. Six-month revenue fell to $83 billion from $89.7 billion a year ago.
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State to check on residents' health
By Warren King
Seattle Times medical reporter
July 20, 2006
Washington state health officials will soon start asking detailed questions about the health of some state residents - and even give them brief physical exams.
The door-to-door survey of 1,100 randomly selected households across the state will try to learn more about our health, and especially about our risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, to better target preventive educational programs.
"We want to get a snapshot of [residents'] health ... and if we can't prevent the diseases, have early detection of them," said Dr. Juliet VanEenwyk, state epidemiologist for noninfectious diseases.
The Washington Adult Health Survey is sponsored by the state Department of Health and is designed to gather a cross section of state residents. The survey will begin late this month and will take about a year, VanEenwyk said.
Cardiovascular disease - including heart disease and stroke - is of particular interest because it's the leading cause of death, killing about 15,000 state residents a year.
About 1,500 people a year die of diabetes complications, and the number is steadily increasing.
Evidence abounds that many already have the diseases or are at risk. A statewide telephone survey last year found that about a quarter of adults have high blood pressure and more than a third have high cholesterol. And state health authorities estimate about one-fifth of adults are obese.
Information
In this latest survey, selected participants will be asked about their access to health care and whether they have dental problems, osteoporosis, emphysema or cancer. Other questions will center on diet, medications and other risks for disease such as tobacco and alcohol use.
A nurse on each survey team will measure blood pressure, pulse, height, weight and waist size.
A blood sample will be taken to measure cholesterol and blood sugar.
A hair sample, to measure mercury levels, will be taken from women of childbearing age and participants 60 and older.
"We'll ask about fish consumption to see if certain types cause higher levels of mercury," said VanEenwyk.
Surveyors will wear yellow vests and carry photo identification.
Participants will be given a $45 gift card for their help in the survey. Officials are not seeking volunteers; participants are being chosen to represent the diverse population of the state.
The survey is being financed by an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kansas and Arkansas also were awarded survey grants.
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Around the Globe
China becomes third largest food donor in world: report
Last Updated Thu, 20 Jul 2006 05:36:41 EDT
CBC News
China became the world's third-largest food aid donor in 2005, the same year it stopped receiving assistance from the World Food Program, while the United States and the European Union remained the top two contributors, the U.N. agency said Thursday.
Donations from China almost tripled to 577,000 tonnes and accounted for more than half of the rise in overall food aid donations last year, the World Food Program said in its annual report.
Most of China's aid went to hunger-stricken North Korea, its longtime communist ally, with the rest going to Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Sri Lanka and a dozen other countries, according to the report.
The report was based on figures from the database of the International Food Aid Information System, which was developed by the WFP to help manage donations from around the world.
According to the WFP, global food aid grew by 10 per cent to 8.2 million tonnes in 2005, with the United States providing 4 million tonnes, or 49 per cent of the donations.
The EU totalled 1.5 million tonnes, the report said. Japan, the third-largest donor in 2004, was fourth in 2005, donating more than 399,000 tonnes.
Wheat and wheat flour were the main commodities donated, followed by coarse grains like maize and maize meal, and rice.
"Donations of food made the difference between life and death after the tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake and in Sudan, so we are extraordinarily grateful to all who gave last year," James T. Morris, the WFP's executive director, said in a statement.
He warned that there was still not enough "to meet the most basic needs of millions of individuals."
The WFP began providing food aid to China in 1979, meeting the immediate food needs of more than 30 million poor Chinese and helping build infrastructure in their communities through programs exchanging food for work and training.
It made its final food donation to China in April 2005, a move that heralded the country's gradual emergence from decades of dire poverty and hunger.
Incomes and living conditions in much of China, however, remain far behind those of the wealthy coastal cities. The leadership has promised to spend heavily on easing politically volatile poverty in the countryside, where nearly two-thirds of the country's 1.3 billion people live.
The WFP's report said sub-Saharan Africa for the first time received more than half of all the food aid, with Ethiopia receiving the most. Other major recipients included Sudan, Uganda, Eritrea and Kenya.
The amount given to Asia increased by 14 per cent, the report said, with North Korea receiving the second-largest amount of aid worldwide, mostly from China and South Korea. Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka were the other Asian beneficiaries.
Deliveries to the Middle East and North Africa dropped 53 per cent to 29,000 tonnes, while aid to Latin America and the Caribbean increased by eight per cent to 49,000 tonnes, the report said.
The WFP said it delivered 54 per cent of the world's food aid in 2005, reaching some 97 million people.
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French magistrate goes on drunken rampage
PARIS, July 18, 2006 (AFP)
A Paris judge has been sent to a psychiatric hospital after going on a drunken rampage with a Masonic sword, legal sources said on Tuesday.
Police were called to the home of Philippe Bonnet of the Paris appeals court after a guest staying there alerted them to his unusual behaviour.
He attacked the two officers with the sword, slightly injuring one, before being overpowered with a flash-ball, a non-lethal weapon used by French police. He was then taken to a psychiatric hospital.
Two weeks previously, the judge had threatened his host with the weapon during a party he attended. He was placed under judicial investigation and given a conditional release.
A legal source said the chief prosecutor for Paris had since launched disciplinary procedures to have the judge temporarily suspended.
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Maybe Tom Cruise is on to something about antidepressants
4:51 PM EDT ON 19/07/06
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The manufacturers of Prozac and other antidepressants should include prescribing information about an uncommon but life-threatening lung problem that affects babies born to mothers who take the drugs during pregnancy, health officials said Wednesday.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it had asked the companies to add information about the possible risk of the lung disorder, called persistent pulmonary hypertension. Meanwhile, the agency said it is seeking more information about the risk.
Babies with the disorder have high pressure in the blood vessels of their lungs and are not able to get enough oxygen into their bloodstream, the FDA said.
One or two babies per 1,000 in the U.S. develop the disorder shortly after birth. However, infants whose mothers took antidepressants in the second half of pregnancy had six times the expected risk of developing the lung disorder, researchers reported in a study published Feb. 9 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
That report came out days after the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study that illustrated the potential risk of relapsed depression in women who stopped taking prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy.
The two studies worried many women, since they implied there are risks in pregnancy to both continuing on the medications and not.
Women who are pregnant or who are thinking about getting pregnant and take selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors should not stop taking the antidepressants without first talking to a doctor, the FDA said in a public health advisory intended for doctors and patients. The drugs, also called SSRIs, include Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Lexapro.
The FDA said it would further update the labels of the drugs as additional information becomes available.
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Carved stone still mystifies scholars
CNN
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) -- In 1872, so the story goes, workers digging a hole for a fence post near Lake Winnipesaukee in the central part of this New England state found a lump of clay that seemed out of place.
There was something inside -- a dark, odd-looking, egg-shaped stone with a variety of carvings, including a face, teepee, ear of corn and starlike circles.
And there were many questions: Who made the stone and why? How old was it? How was it carved?
To date, no one has been able to say for sure, and the item has come to be known as the "Mystery Stone." Seneca Ladd, a local businessman who hired the workers, was credited with the discovery.
"As Mr. Ladd is quite a naturalist, and has already an extensive private collection of relics and specimens, he was delighted with the new discovery, and exhibited and explained the really remarkable relic with an enthusiasm which only the genuine student can feel," an article in The American Naturalist said that November.
Ladd died in 1892, and in 1927, one of his daughters donated the stone to the New Hampshire Historical Society. The stone, surrounded by mirrors showing off its symbols, is on display at the Museum of New Hampshire History, where it was last exhibited in 1996.
All the symbols on the 4-inch-long, 2 1/2-inch-thick stone are open to interpretation. On one side, it has what looks like inverted arrows, a moon, some dots and a spiral. Another side shows the ear of corn and a depressed circle with three figures, one of which looks like a deer's leg.
The American Naturalist suggested that the stone "commemorates a treaty between two tribes." Others have guessed the stone is Celtic or Inuit. A letter to the historical society in 1931 suggested it was a "thunderstone," which, the writer said, "always present the appearance of having been machined or hand-worked: frequently they come from deep in the earth, embedded in lumps of clay, or even surrounded by solid rock or coral."
Another curious detail is that there are holes bored in both ends of the stone, with different size bits. Each bore is straight, not tapered. Scratches in the lower bore suggest it was placed on a metal shaft and removed several times, according to an analysis done by state officials in 1994.
"I've seen a number of holes bored in stone with technology that you would associate with prehistoric North America," said Richard Boisvert, state archaeologist. "There's a certain amount of unevenness ... and this hole was extremely regular throughout."
Boisvert suggested the holes were drilled by power tools, perhaps from the 19th or 20th centuries. "What we did not see was variations that would be consistent with something that was several hundred years old," he said.
The analysis, which included comments from geologist Eugene Boudette, concluded that the stone is a type of quartzite, derived from sandstone, or mylonite, a fine-grained, laminated rock formed by the shifting of rock layers along faults. The rock type was not familiar to New Hampshire, but the state could not be ruled out as the source, Boudette said.
Boisvert said to his knowledge, the stone is unique. "That makes it very hard to figure out where it fits," he said.
One problem is the story of the stone's discovery is fuzzy, he said.
"You couldn't be certain exactly what kind of context it came from. There's a lot of ambiguity there ... it's very difficult to evaluate it," he said. "The context of the discovery is sometimes more important than the item itself."
For example, Boisvert said, if the item had been something used by a fraternal order that has its own secrets and mysteries, "that means the information doesn't get out very well, does it? The information may have been available at one point, but it's really no longer available to us. Who knows?"
Wesley Balla, the society's director of collections and exhibitions, said one avenue to explore might be looking for similar symbols. And, "there's also always the hope that there might be something more in either newspaper or manuscript form that might discuss the contents," he said.
Balla said the discovery seems to reflect on the way artifacts were treated in the 19th century. The focus was more on the object itself, not on details such as how deep the soil was where it was found, if anything was found near it, or how far it was from the lake.
"All of that is lost," he said.
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